He could see that the Trivids had been watching all along.
He sacrificed stability for height and rose on his hind legs, snarling like a beast as he did. The Trivids, gathered in the dark and the rain, reacted not at all. The anger burned in him again, and he stumbled forward, grabbing one of the ridgebacks by its neck. He wanted to shout, but the best he could manage was an explosive whisper. “Where is he?”
Either the Trivid had no fear, or his kind showed it in a manner Barath did not know how to read. It did nothing.
Barath wanted to tighten his grip and rip the creature’s head from its shoulders. There was no reason not to. He had no future, and he had no cause to care for his reputation.
Then he saw the totem the Trivid held in its hand. They all held one: every single Trivid, holding before them all they had to show for Magrison’s presence among them. Some held theirs higher than others, either stressing the object’s power, or answering Barath in the only way they knew how.
Barath released the ridgeback, dropped to all fours, and moved toward the crowd—not because he wanted any of them, but because they stood between him and his murderer.
They moved aside.
And in the hut a few short steps away he found Mukh’than, an ardent lover curled beside the ancient human in his bed.
Our human described this Ravia as taller than himself, as thin as a reed, with a complexion the color of pebbled sand and sunny hair that descended to her shoulders in spiral ringlets. He said that since she was a Firstmother of his species and not a Firstfather like himself there were serious differences in the proportions of her body and his, but the descriptions themselves used terms that were unfamiliar to us. Once he said that every awful thing he had done, he did out of hate for those who had taken her. It is not a way of thinking we understand. But that is why we’re Trivids. And why he’s human.
Magrison was a knot of withered flesh with frayed cords for limbs. He gaped at the thatched roof above him, not seeing it, reacting not at all to the presence of the Riirgaan who lay naked beside him, stroking Magrison’s pale white chest. Mukh’than seemed almost as insensate; he had closed both his transparent eyelids and the second layer of opaque ones that complemented them, and let his own mouth hang open, as if in parody of the human’s slack-jawed senility.
The vague similarities between Human and Riirgaan anatomy that made some of the more unpleasant races grumble about not being able to tell those two species apart—similar heights and masses, bipedal posture, faces that arranged their features in approximately the same positions—seemed an obscenity in light of the differences that were visible when they lay side by side. Humans had limbs jointed at their midpoints; Riirgaan limbs had three segments. Humans had torsos a little like cylinders. Riirgaans were something like a prickly plant, with flat surfaces punctuated by spines. The proportions were off, too—especially the longer legs of the Riirgaan and the larger head of the Human. Nor did there seem, at first glance, to be any place where their respective parts could fit together. But that physical obstacle didn’t seem to bother Mukh’than any more than the human’s inability to respond did—and from the impassioned way Mukh’than stroked the collection of enflamed protrusions on his own belly, he didn’t need the human’s conscious involvement at all. Magrison’s mere presence seemed to be enough.
When Barath charged them, Mukh’than was fast enough to grab his needle-gun and fire one shot, which dug a stinging furrow in the Kurth’s side. But before he could fire a second, Barath’s foreclaws were firmly imbedded in Mukh’than’s wrist. The gun went flying into some dark corner.
The human clutched for his bed companion and murmured a single word in a voice filled with confusion and dust: “Ravia!”
Barath lifted Mukh’than off the bed by his impaled wrist. “Ravia? Is that who you are to him?”
Mukh’than threw a punch with his free hand. But it had no more effect than a single raindrop falling on stone. Without weapons, there was nothing any mere Riirgaan could do to get past a Kurth’s armored hide.
Barath, feeling nothing but fury, drew Mukh’than closer.
Magrison reached for open air. “Don’t hurt her! Please!”
Barath had never been good at reading Hom.Sap facial expressions, even after years of working for representatives of the species. The shifts from smile to frown to sneer and back again, so significant to them, had never struck him as anything more than random shifts of rubbery flesh. But it would have been impossible to miss the pain and desperation on the face of the slack-jawed old man, reaching with strength he no longer had to rescue the creature he thought he loved. Sickened, Barath faced Mukh’than again. “It isn’t the first time he’s begged for you in my hearing. He asked for you the other day too.”
Mukh’than coughed. “He asked for Ravia…”
“Meaning you.” Barath impaled Mukh’than’s other wrist with another popped claw.
Magrison reacted to the Riirgaan’s agony with a soft, weak cry of anguish.
“He loves you,” Barath said.
“And I love him. He is the love of my life.”
“You’re Ravia?”
Mukh’than’s voice was an agonized, breathless wheeze. “Ravia was… a female of his species. Mother… to his children. She died… as they died… in the war his enemies fought to avenge his crimes…”
“But he called you Ravia.”
“When I am beside him, I am Ravia. I am a male of my own species… but I am honored to take the place of a female in his.”
The arrogance in the Riirgaan’s voice, dripping with satisfaction about his perverse liaison with a genocidal murderer of another species, was so infuriating that Barath couldn’t resist retracting his claws and hurling the sordid little creature to the hut floor. Barath heard cracks indicating that Mukh’than broke bones when he hit but felt no diminution of his rage. He gave up on a clean kill right then and there, and instead decided to prolong his revenge by first shattering as many as the Riirgaan’s remaining bones as he could manage. He lurched forward, ignoring Magrison’s plaintive cries of “Ravia!”, and falling on Mukh’than before the Riirgaan could crawl away into the dark.
“You killed the others in our party,” Barath spat, grinding the Riirgaan’s wrists for additional pain. “The Human. The Tchi. I don’t know how you arranged it, but you made sure they died on the way here.”
Mukh’than’s response was a broken trill, distorted by agony, that nevertheless reflected real amusement. “That’s right. You would be surprised how easy it was.”
“You must have had trouble figuring out how to kill me.”
“Not at all. I wanted you alive until now.”
“Liar. I barely escaped the sleepcube.”
More trills—but, as strained as they were, not frightened trills, but terrible triumphant ones. “If I had really wanted to suffocate you, you would already be dead. Remember the others. I know better jungle poisons than that!”
“I warned you not to lie to me!”
“It’s no lie. If I wanted to smother you, why would I also infest you with scaleworms? What would be the point of that? If you suffocated in the cube they would die as fast as you did. I wanted only to incapacitate you for a while… to keep you from noticing the scaleworms I planted until after they laid their eggs and began what’s going to be a much slower death. You will not make it back to the river no matter how quickly you travel. You will grow weak. You will collapse. You will linger. You will be in pain, an invalid, mad with delirium for an entire season, maybe two—something these Trivids can care for and consider theirs, so I can have more time to spend with the precious dying thing I consider mine. I have done it before, with other wanderers in this jungle. My only mistake with you, you vulgar brain-dead animal, was misjudging your metabolism… thinking the fumes would hold you longer, and give me time to get away. But that doesn’t matter, not to you. You’re still a corpse too stupid to realize it’s started to rot.”