“Like what?” Dennis asked. He didn’t have high hopes, but he’d be helpful if he could.
Estresor Fil crossed her ankles and broke eye contact, another indicator that she was oddly uncomfortable. “How do you tell? If someone likes you, I mean?”
Dennis had struggled with that one his whole life. Who didn’t? After third or fourth grade when there was a lot of arm-punching going on—although at the time, he remembered, he had not correctly interpreted the punching either, he had been pretty much lost unless a girl actually came to him and more or less confessed her attraction. “I guess you just sort of have to know it. By the way they talk to you, the way they look at you. If they touch you a lot, you know, just casually. Or sometimes you have to come right out and ask them, I think. And always be prepared to get turned down.”
“That’s just so silly,” Estresor Fil said. “It’s so much easier for Zimonians. If we’re interested in someone, that way, we simply display ourselves. If they are interested in us, they will come over and say so. If not, they pretend they didn’t see the display and there’s no more discussion of it. But there is no ambiguity, no wondering or trying to guess.”
“By ‘display,’ you mean ... ?”
“Of reproductive organs,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. I don’t think that would go over well here,” Dennis warned her. “Especially at the Academy.”
“Oh, I know that,” Estresor Fil reassured him. “I wasn’t suggesting it, just pointing out that our way is vastly preferable to yours. When you leave it all up to guesswork, mind reading, and so on, I think you are just creating barriers to happiness. Particularly since there are so few genuine mind readers among you.”
“Maybe so,” Dennis admitted. “But the other way might be just a little bit distracting to those around you. Is there ... some special person you’re interested in?”
Estresor Fil still couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yes,” she admitted after a long moment. “All of you—humans, I mean—looked sort of funny to me when I first got here. So tall, with skin colors that are so bland, and such odd facial features. I think part of why I like your cartoons so much is that there’s such variety in the characters, far more than in your actual species. But I have come to see that there is beauty among you, and one person in particular has caught my interest. I think I might be in love, but I’m not really sure how you tell. And I am definitely not sure how to tell if that person loves you back.”
“If you could come up with a certain answer to that one,” Dennis said, “you’d be the most popular being on the planet.”
“I feel ... shy ... about telling you who it is,” Estresor Fil said, almost in a whisper.
Dennis wanted to put her at ease if he could. Even though she had definitely unsettled him with this whole line of conversation. “Don’t feel like you have to, if you’re not comfortable.”
“But I want to talk to someone, Dennis. Someone who may be able to help answer my questions and concerns.”
“And you think I’ll be able to do that?” he asked.
“Possibly. But I find myself oddly embarrassed.”
Dennis wasn’t sure how someone whose idea of the proper way to express romantic attraction involved the public display of reproductive organs could be embarrassed about speaking a name, but decided that was a matter for sociologists, not for him. “I’m not very judgmental,” he assured her. “And I promise I won’t laugh or anything. If you want to talk, I’m here to talk to.”
She took a deep breath, which he found a very human thing to do, and let it out slowly. “Very well. I find myself quite taken with Felicia Mendoza. Do you think that she would ever return my interest, Dennis?”
Felicia?Dennis was in shock. He had always assumed that Felicia and Will would get together at some point, and when she had chased him away to corral Will this afternoon, he thought maybe that point would come sooner rather than later. He’d never really talked to Felicia about her love life, but he had never seen any signs, at least that he recognized, that she was attracted to the diminutive green alien with the huge popping eyes.
He could feel her gaze on him, and now he couldn’t bring himself to meet it. “Am I just being foolish, Dennis?” she asked. “Do you think ...” He could hear the hurt in her voice as she considered the possibility.
“I ... I really don’t know, Estresor Fil.” That was the truth, at least. “I don’t know what Felicia is looking for, that way, or who. If anyone. I’ve never really discussed it with her.”
“So there’s a chance?” Now her voice sounded hopeful, and he didn’t want to be responsible for dashing that hope.
“A chance? Of course there is,” he promised her. “There’s always a chance.” I think.
Riker?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
But the search continues?
Of course it does.
Friends, family, interviewed? All known prior whereabouts examined?
Except Starbase 311, of course.
Of course.
Otherwise, yes. The son, Will Riker, knows nothing. Neither does the woman.
Pulaski? The doctor?
That’s right. She hasn’t heard from him. She’s not happy about it. They were together only a brief while. He seems to have hurt her badly.
No surprise. It’s the kind of man he is. Cold, unfeeling.
It was hard to tell if she was angrier about the fact that he vanished without telling her, or about the fact that she was being asked about him.
She’s a good doctor? This Pulaski?
One of our best.
Then let her live.
Are you sure? He might still have some feelings for her.
Her punishment, for caring about Riker, will come when she learns of his death.
Fitting.
It’s all fitting. That’s the point. It isn’t truly justice if it doesn’t fit the crime.
That’s all I want. Justice.
That’s all any of us want. Justice. And Riker’s head in a box.
Chapter 17
“The land here is as God-forsaken as ever a man has set eyes upon. It is swampe, most of it, with almost no solid erth to walk on. With every step your boots sink deeper into the muck and fill with brackish water. The swampe stinks and is ful of bugs and even gaters which can bite a man before he sees it coming. Fore the last three days and nights I have never been dry but always wet and misirabel. Priv. Rector pulled a leech from my neck, afternoon yesterday, and then found four on his own legs, under his trous., drinking his blood. We are only days from Savanna, they say, where the Navy waits for us. But the days and nights are cold and we are hungry and ready to fight.
“Its a good thing the taste of our victories in Atlanta and since still remain in our mouths, and the cheers of the slaves who follow us from place to place, to drive us on through this because in a long and hard campaign I cant remember the boys ever beeing so unhappy and fed up. We know what we do is importent and Gen. Wm. Sherman, or Uncle Billy as the boys call him, keeps telling us so. I just keep going, try not to complane, and some of the boys have started calling me Old Iron Boots because they say nothing can stop me from taking the next step. Maybe they are right. Anyhow I guess its all a man can do is to keep marching. We havent seen a Johnny Reb to shoot for two days so we just keep pushing threw the swampe trying to keep powder dry and muskets ready.”