She surged away to the house without another word.
"She's been sick," my brother said, watching her go. "When I called, I could hear people telling her she wasn't well enough to go out even for this."
I said nothing. I had extended courtesy to the Tlic. Now I didn't want to talk to anyone. I hoped he would go in—out of curiosity if nothing else.
"Finally found out more than you wanted to know, eh?" I looked at him.
"Don't give me one of her looks," he said. "You're not her. You're just her property."
One of her looks. Had I picked up even an ability to imitate her expressions?
"What'd you do, puke?" He sniffed the air. "So now you know what you're in for."
I walked away from him. He and I had been close when we were kids. He would let me follow him around when I was home and sometimes T'Gatoi would let me bring him along when she took me into the city. But something had happened when he reached adolescence. I never knew what. He began keeping out of T'Gatoi's way. Then he began running away—until he realized there was no "away." Not in the Preserve. Certainly not outside. After that he concentrated on getting his share of every egg that came into the house, and on looking out for me in a way that made me all but hate him—a way that clearly said, as long as I was all right, he was safe from the Tlic.
"How was it, really?" he demanded, following me. "I killed an achti. The young ate it."
"You didn't run out of the house and puke because they ate an achti."
"I had… never seen a person cut open before." That was true, and enough for him to know. I couldn't talk about the other. Not with him.
"Oh," he said. He glanced at me as though he wanted to say more, but he kept quiet.
We walked, not really headed anywhere. Toward the back, toward the cages, toward the fields.
"Did he say anything?" Qui asked. "Lomas, I mean." Who else would he mean? "He said `T'Khotgif."
Qui shuddered. "If she had done that to me, she'd be the last person I'd call for."
"You'd call for her. Her sting would ease your pain without killing the grubs in you."
"You think I'd care if they died?»
No. Of course he wouldn't. Would I?
"Shit!" He drew a deep breath. "I've seen what they do.
You think this thing with Lomas was bad? It was nothing."
I didn't argue. He didn't know what he was talking about. "I saw them eat a man," he said.
I turned to face him. "You're lying!"
"I saw them eat a man." He paused. "It was when I was little. I had been to the Hartmund house and I was on my way home. Halfway here, I saw a man and a Tlic and the man was N'Tlic. The ground was hilly. I was able to hide from them and watch. The Tlic wouldn't open the man because she had nothing to feed the grubs. The man couldn't go any farther and there were no houses around. He was in so much pain he told her to kill him. He begged her to kill him. Finally, she did. She cut his throat. One swipe of one claw. I saw the grubs eat their way out, then burrow in again, still eating."
His words made me see Lomas's flesh again, parasitized, crawling. "Why didn't you tell me that?" I whispered.
He looked startled, as though he'd forgotten I was listening. "I don't know."
"You started to run away not long after that, didn't you?" "Yeah. Stupid. Running inside the Preserve. Running in a cage."
I shook my head, said what I should have said to him long ago. "She wouldn't take you, Qui. You don't have to worry." "She would. if anything happened to you."
"No. She'd take Xuan Hoa. Hoa. wants it." She wouldn't if she had stayed to watch Lomas.
"They don't take women," he said with contempt.
"They do sometimes." I glanced at him. "Actually, they prefer women. You should be around them when they talk among themselves. They say women have more body fat to protect the grubs. But they usually take men to leave the women free to bear their own young."
"To provide the next generation of host animals," he said, switching from contempt to bitterness.
"It's more than that!" I countered. Was it?
"If it were going to happen to me, I'd want to believe it was more, too."
"It is more!" I felt like a kid. Stupid argument.
"Did you think so while T'Gatoi was picking worms out of that guy's guts?"
"It's not supposed to happen that way."
"Sure it is. You weren't supposed to see it, that's all. And his Tlic was supposed to do it. She could sting him unconscious and the operation wouldn't have been as painful. But she'd still open him, pick out the grubs, and if she missed even one, it would poison him and eat him from the inside out."
There was actually a time when my mother told me to show respect for Qui because he was my older brother. I walked away, hating him. In his way, he was gloating. He was safe and I wasn't. I could have hit him, but I didn't think I would be able to stand it when he refused to hit back, when he looked at me with contempt and pity.
He wouldn't let me get away. Longer-legged, he swung ahead of me and made me feel as though I were following him.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I strode on, sick and furious.
"Look, it probably won't be that bad with you. T'Gatoi likes you. She'll be careful."
I turned back toward the house, almost running from him. "Has she done it to you vet?" he asked, keeping up easily.
"I mean, you're about the right age for implantation. Has she—"
I hit him. I didn't know I was going to do it, but I think I meant to kill him. If he hadn't been bigger and stronger, I think I would have.
He tried to hold me off, but in the end, had to defend himself. He only hit me a couple of times. That was plenty. I don't remember going down, but when I came to, he was gone. It was worth the pain to be rid of him.
I got up and walked slowly toward the house. The back was dark. No one was in the kitchen. My mother and sisters were sleeping in their bedrooms—or pretending to.
Once I was in the kitchen, I could hear voices—Tlic and Terran from the next room. I couldn't make out what they were saying—didn't want to make it out.
I sat down at my mother's table, waiting for quiet. The table was smooth and worn, heavy and well-crafted. My father had made it for her just before he died. I remembered hanging around underfoot when he built it. He didn't mind. Now I sat leaning on it, missing him. I could have talked to him. He had done it three times in his long life. Three clutches of eggs, three times being opened and sewed up. How had he done it? How did anyone do it?
I got up, took the rifle from its hiding place, and sat down again with it. It needed cleaning, oiling.
All I did was load it.
"Gan?"
She made a lot of little clicking sounds when she walked on bare floor, each limb clicking in succession as it touched down. Waves of little clicks.
She came to the table, raised the front half of her body above it, and surged onto it. Sometimes she moved so smoothly she seemed to flow like water itself. She coiled her-self into a small hill in the middle of the table and looked at me.
"That was bad," she said softly. "You should not have seen it. It need not be that way."
"I know."
"T'Khotgif—Ch'Khotgif now—she will die of her disease. She will not live to raise her children. But her sister will provide for them, and for Bram Lomas." Sterile sister. One fertile female in every lot. One to keep the family going. That sister owed Lomas more than she could ever repay.
"He'll live then?"
"Yes."
"I wonder if he would do it again."
"No one would ask him to do that, again."
I looked into the yellow eyes, wondering how much I saw and understood there, and how much I only imagined. "No one ever asks us," I said. "You never asked me."
She moved her head slightly. "What's the matter with your face?"