Glenna sighed. Maybe the demure dress had been a tactical error? Without spelling it out in detail, she had known faster men. In the case of Quintus Bloom, that slowness might be a deadly drawback. He was a career man, a man on the move, heading upwards and already itching to leave Sentinel Gate. In retrospect, it was a pity that she had introduced him to Louis Nenda, with his talk of the Anfract, because they would soon be on their way. Glenna might not get a second chance — at either of them.
She was close to home, near enough to see the soft light that she left burning at night by her front porch. Near enough to see that the porch door, which she was sure had been left open, was now closed. Someone had been inside her house. Perhaps they were still in her house.
Glenna frowned — in puzzlement, not in alarm. Theft and violence were almost unknown on Sentinel Gate. She lived alone. Maintenance and cleaning robots were punctiliously careful to leave a house’s doors and windows exactly as they found them.
She felt the delicious tingle of a desired though unexpected treat. Quintus Bloom had disappointed. He had proved regrettably diffident. But Louis Nenda would not be like that. He was a real out-worlder, a wild man from one of the rough-and-tumble planets of the Zardalu Communion. She had postponed his date, and all that went with it. But he wasn’t willing to wait.
She just loved an impatient man.
Glenna slipped off her shoes, eased open the door, and drifted inside. The livingroom was empty, but she could smell a faint, alien musk. Of course, he would already be in the bedroom, lying waiting for her on the soft, over-sized bed. Would he have removed those dark, tight-fitting clothes? Or would he have waited, to let Glenna do it? Waited, if he was the man she hoped he was. He must know how eager she was to explore for herself the ways in which he had been augmented.
Glenna tiptoed into the bedroom. As she approached the bed itself she paused. Louis was not lying on it. And crouched beside it—
A great nightmare shape rose up, as high as the ceiling. A pair of long, jointed limbs swept Glenna from the floor, and her scream was muffled by a soft black paw. She was drawn in toward a broad, eyeless head, and to the thin proboscis that quivered at its center. Faint, high-pitched squeaks sounded in her ears.
Glenna struggled, but not as hard as she might have. She had recognized the intruder. It was a Cecropian. She knew through the institute’s grapevine that a female of that alien species had recently arrived there. Arrived, according to Glenna’s informant, with Louis Nenda.
“What do you want?”
It was wasted breath, because everyone knew that Cecropians didn’t speak. But the eyeless white head nodded at the sound, and carried Glenna back to the door of her living room. One black limb pointed silently through the doorway to Glenna’s communications terminal, then to a gray box that sat next to it. Glenna found herself placed gently back on the floor at the doorway. She was at once released.
She could flee — Glenna’s intruder would have a difficult time squeezing back through into the living room, though she must have entered that way. However, it was hard to believe that anything that intended her real harm would have placed her where she was free to run away. Glenna walked unsteadily across to the communications terminal, and stood there waiting.
The Cecropian eased her way through the door and crept across to the gray box. Nimble black paws began a complex dance of movement in front of it. The terminal screen came to life, displaying words: SPEAK YOUR HUMAN SPEECH. THIS DEVICE WILL INTERPRET IT.
“Who are you? Who are you?” Glenna had to say it twice, she was so breathless. “What do you want?”
The screen flickered to a longer statement.
MY NAME IS ATVAR H’SIAL. I AM A CECROPIAN, AND A BUSINESS PARTNER OF THE HUMAN, LOUIS NENDA. IF YOU ARE THE HUMAN FEMALE GLENNA OMAR, I WISH TO TALK WITH YOU.
“That’s me.” Glenna stared at the gray box, then at the dark-red carapace and the open twin yellow horns on the head. As she spoke, she again could hear those faint bat-squeaks of sound. “I thought that Cecropians saw with sound, and spoke to each other using some sort of smells.”
This time the words on the screen came painfully slowly.
THAT IS INDEED THE CASE. I HAVE BUILT A DEVICE WHICH TAKES HUMAN SPEECH, AND CONVERTS IT TO A TWO-DIMENSIONAL PATTERN OF SOUNDS BEYOND YOUR FREQUENCY RANGE. I SEE THAT PATTERN AS A PICTURE, WITHIN WHICH ARE THE FORMS OF MY OWN WRITTEN LANGUAGE. I AM THUS “READING” YOUR WORDS WITHIN THAT VISUAL SOUND PATTERN. I AM “SPEAKING” IN A SIMILAR WAY, BY THE CONVERSION OF MY OWN GESTURES TO A TWO-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE, WHICH IN TURN MAPS TO THE ONE-DIMENSIONAL SOUNDS THAT YOU CALL WORDS. IT IS A CRUDE METHOD OF SPEECH, AND AN IMPRECISE ONE, BUT THE BEST THAT I CAN ATTAIN. BEAR WITH ME. TO MAKE NEW SPEECH, WORDS THAT I HAVE NOT ALREADY RECORDED, IS MOST DIFFICULT.
“But what do you want?”
I WISH TO OFFER YOU AN UNUSUAL OPPORTUNITY. I BELIEVE THAT YOU VERY MUCH WISH TO PERFORM SEX ACTS WITH MY PARTNER, LOUIS NENDA, AND WITH THE HUMAN QUINTUS BLOOM.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way.” Glenna did her best to make allowances for a Cecropian’s lack of understanding of the finer points of human social habits. “But just for the sake of discussion, what if I do?”
A screenful of words flashed into existence. Atvar H’sial must have prepared the whole speech in advance.
IN ORDER TO DO THAT, YOU NEED TO HAVE CONTINUED ACCESS TO THEM. THE MAN BLOOM, TOGETHER WITH LOUIS NENDA AND MYSELF, WILL SHORTLY BE LEAVING SENTINEL GATE. WE HAVE BEEN ASKED TO GUIDE QUINTUS BLOOM TO A REGION OF THE SPIRAL ARM KNOWN AS THE TORVIL ANFRACT, WHERE HE BELIEVES THAT THE HUMAN FEMALE DARYA LANG IS CURRENTLY ENGAGED IN EXPLORATION. NENDA AND I KNOW THE ANFRACT REGION WELL, AND CAN EASILY TAKE BLOOM THERE. BUT IF NENDA AND BLOOM LEAVE SENTINEL GATE, YOUR DESIRE TO COUPLE WITH THEM WILL NOT BE FULFILLED, NOR WILL YOU HAVE FURTHER ACCESS TO THEM. HOWEVER, I CAN ARRANGE FOR YOU TO GO WITH US ON OUR EXPEDITION, AS AN INFORMATION SYSTEMS SPECIALIST. OFFICIALLY YOU WILL BE HELPING ME TO ACHIEVE BETTER COMMUNICATION WITH HUMANS, EMPLOYING THE MEANS THAT WE ARE USING HERE. UNOFFICIALLY, YOU WILL HAVE FEW DUTIES, AND YOU WILL BE FREE TO PURSUE YOUR OWN ENDS.
“You really think I’m that keen for it? Don’t bother translating and answering that. Suppose that I say I’m interested? — and I might be. I don’t understand what’s in it for you.”
Atvar H’sial was silent for a long time. Whether she was thinking, or just having trouble translating, Glenna could not be sure. The words came at last: MY SLAVE AND INTERPRETER, J’MERLIA, IS WITH DARYA LANG. TO GET HIM BACK, I AM MOST ANXIOUS THAT LOUIS NENDA AND I GO ON THIS JOURNEY. HOWEVER, I HAVE FOR A LONG TIME BEEN CONCERNED THAT NENDA MAY BE EMOTIONALLY UNBALANCED CONCERNING THE HUMAN FEMALE, DARYA LANG. YOU ARE, I GATHER, AN EXCEPTIONALLY ATTRACTIVE HUMAN FEMALE. AND HE IS, I BELIEVE, SUSCEPTIBLE TO YOUR CHARMS. IF YOU WERE TO TRAVEL TO THE TORVIL ANFRACT, AND LOUIS NENDA WAS TO BE EXPOSED TO BOTH OF YOU…
“No contest.” Glenna had taken Hans Rebka from Darya without any trouble at all; she could do the same with Louis Nenda. She was intrigued. It was at the same time something of a challenge, and a chance to become closer to Quintus Bloom. Nenda would be interesting for a while, but Bloom was something else. It would be no bad thing to wander the spiral arm as the regular consort of a recognized genius. As for his apparent shyness, she knew ways to cure that.
Glenna had only one question left. “I’m sure I can make Louis forget that Darya Lang ever existed. But I wonder about you. You’re not jealous of Lang, are you? I mean, I realize that you are a female, yourself. But I thought that there was no way that humans and Cecropians — that Louis Nenda and you — I mean, how do male Cecropians handle the females, anyway, in your mating?”