I shrugged. "That was a long time ago."
"Sure." She regarded me sympathetically. "I saw the look on your face when he and Oar left together…"
"I didn't have a look on my face."
Ullis blinked several times. Maybe she was doing it on purpose. Finally she said, "The hard thing for Jelca was being so close to normal. You understand? If he put on a wig, he was there. Not for long, maybe four hours before the lesions started bleeding, but for those four hours, he had it. He could walk down any street without stares. He could go on dates with real people. Yes, his scalp took weeks to heal, but if he wanted those four hours, he could have them. He could get clear. And that made him a little crazy — like he wasn't in the same boat as the rest of us. He never said it in so many words, but I was his partner; I could tell. Jelca never identified himself as an Explorer. I think sometimes he wanted to. Maybe if things had gone differently between the pair of you… but that was all part of it anyway. He couldn't bring himself to connect with another Explorer.
"I know that makes him sound arrogant," Ullis added hurriedly, "but it wasn't that way. Not at first. He just felt out of place. Miscategorized. And then, when he learned he'd be marooned on Melaquin — treated like an Explorer, and like a criminal — he felt unjustly betrayed. Like someone had personally spit on him. That's why he had the nerve to steal the Sperm-field generator. I've never asked what he did to get it, but I think he hurt someone. You know what it's like in Ship's Engineering; there's always someone around. They wouldn't let Jelca walk off with important equipment like that. I don't know for sure — maybe he took down some people with that souped-up stunner of his. But he was just so wounded that the council would treat him like any other Explorer… just as worthless, just as expendable…"
"Ullis," I said, "didn't you feel wounded and betrayed too?"
"Sure. But I am an Explorer — and Melaquin is where Explorers end up. In a weird way, I feel fulfilled. I did my job. I stayed true. And because of that, I am fiercely connected with every other member of the corps."
I wanted to deny what she was saying; but I couldn't. However furious I might be with the High Council, some part of my mind whispered it was fitting to get dumped into the disposal chute called Melaquin.
An Explorer's life has only one proper ending: Oh Shit. And Melaquin was the Oh Shit you could walk away from.
Bad Times
"So," Ullis continued, "when Jelca woke up on Melaquin… no, I shouldn't pretend I can see inside his head. I just know it was bad. He came close to killing Kalovski — that was the admiral we were escorting. I had to talk Jelca into going away for a few days, until he cooled off. In the meantime, I dealt with Kalovski… which means I watched him die. That was pretty awful."
"Yes," I murmured.
She waited for me to say more, but I didn't.
"Anyway," she went on, "by the time I rendezvoused with Jelca, he'd already met Eel and Oar. You can imagine how I worried about that — not that I cared how he ran his love life, but two women, with minds like children…" She shook her head. "And back then, they couldn't even speak our language. I tried to talk some scruples into him, but he wouldn't listen. He said he was exploring what the planet had to offer. Whenever I could get the women alone, I tried to find out how they felt about the whole business; frankly, I may have taught them more English than Jelca did. But it was obvious they were infatuated with him. He was the first non-dormant male they had ever met. And they were so bored and lonely before he arrived, they were putty in his hands."
"Both of them?" I asked. "Oar tells the story differently now."
"She would," Ullis replied, "considering how Jelca walked out on them. When we were ready to head south, I was willing to take Eel and Oar with us — not that I thought it was healthy for them to stay with him, but if they wanted to come, I wouldn't leave them behind. Jelca wanted to disappear without a word… selfish bastard. So I grabbed Eel, told her what was happening, and left her alone with Jelca so the two of them could work it out. I would have done the same with Oar, but I couldn't find her; she was probably out clearing fields to impress him." Ullis shook her head morosely.
"What happened between Eel and Jelca?" I asked.
"I don't know — I stayed down on the beach while they talked up on the bluffs. Eventually, Jelca came down alone and announced neither Eel nor Oar were coming with us. They preferred to stay in their home village. There had to be more to it, of course; he'd probably screamed at Eel until she let him go. But I decided the women were better off without him, and maybe it was best to leave before they changed their minds."
"So Eel didn't go with you?"
"No." Ullis looked at me, puzzled. "Why would you think that?"
"Oar said you took her. Oar believed the three of you went away together."
I pictured Eel and Jelca alone on the bluffs that day three years ago. Jelca spurning her. Eel no more than a brokenhearted little girl… and never seen again.
Oh Shit.
Part XVI
Mania
My Attempts to Help (Part 1)
The next day, I tried to help with the spaceship. There was little for me to do; the ship was almost finished, and the few tasks outstanding were one-person jobs that required "technical sophistication" …which is to say, someone who knew what she was doing.
No matter where I went in search of something to do, people ribbed me for being a zoology specialist. Everyone brought it up. After a while, it took an effort to smile at the jibes. I told myself I was just new — oldtimers often tease new arrivals as a gruff form of welcome. It didn't help that I'd shown up after the hard work was done. "Oho, here's the animal lover, just in time to play inspector." They said it jokingly; I tried to hear it that way too.
I told myself there was no genuine resentment under the laughter: resentment for a woman who didn't look like an Explorer.
At meals, I felt people staring.
Three times Ullis told me, "You look really good, Festina."
The one time I saw Jelca during the day, he said nothing at all.
Stop imagining things, I told myself. They don't care what I look like… and even if they do, it's their problem, not mine.
Sure.
To pass the time, I outfitted another cabin inside the whale: carrying in a cot, bolting it to the floor, stashing unneeded equipment from my backpack into a locker. It was all for appearance's sake — I couldn't escape with the others. If I caught a ride in the ship, the League would stop my heart in flight, the same way they terminated any non-sentient creature trying to escape into space. They might even take retribution on the other Explorers for helping me. On the other hand, I had to go through the motions, or someone might start asking questions.
Anyway, another furnished cabin wouldn't hurt anything; the whale had plenty of space. Ullis said the life support systems could handle two hundred people indefinitely, and the food synthesizers had even more capacity. No one knew why the early generations of Melaquin had bothered making a ship so huge. Had they wanted to leave the planet en masse… maybe even return to Earth? Or had they simply fancied a jaunt into space; a sightseeing tour around the moon and back?
The other Explorers had no interest in speculation. Even Ullis excused herself after breakfast, saying she had programming to do — simulation tests and so on. No, she didn't need help… it would take too long to get me up to speed on what she was doing.