Her eyes glittered in the glow from Kaisho’s legs. Both women were looking at me now. Even though I couldn’t see Kaisho’s face, I could tell she was grinning. "Um," I said. "So I guess you’re going to Troyen?"
"Not just me," Festina answered. She put her hand on my arm. "I’ll need a native guide, won’t I?"
Kaisho laughed and laughed. The sound of it made me dizzy.
20
LYING BESIDE COUNSELOR
I don’t remember much from there on — all of a sudden my body got so tired I couldn’t think straight. It felt like Kaisho’s laughter was going all hyena-ish like the Laughing Larry, getting so loud it drowned out everything else in my head. I had time to think, It’s the venom again. Then things turned into a fuddled-up blur where time seemed to get the hiccups.
First I was lying facedown in the mud, while insects no bigger than pepper scuttled under my nose; then suddenly I was neck deep in water, with Zeeleepull and the admiral dragging me across the canal; then whoops, I was back where I started, in the hive’s dome, lying on a pallet beside the Queen Wisdom table. After that, I might have slept, or just passed out for an hour or two… but not the whole night. When I woke with a clearer head, it was still dark, and Counselor had snuggled in beside me.
Several of her legs draped lightly over my body. One of her upper hands was cupped against my cheek: six delicate fingers covered in soft walnut brown skin. The fingers were too long to be human, and they had no nails, but they didn’t look strange to me; they looked like home. Night after night in Verity’s palace, the queen would assign a maidservant to stay next to me as I slept, in case I might wake and want something.
"Are you well now, Teelu?" Counselor whispered.
There was no light in the room where we lay, but a dim glow came from next door — just enough for Counselor to watch me as I slept. Mandasars love to do that… I guess because they don’t sleep deeply themselves. They’re curious about it; the way humans go totally unconscious is kind of eerie to them, creepy but magical. Some of the maidservants back on Troyen actually took anaesthetics before sliding into bed beside me: they wanted to knock themselves out cold, to see what it was like, "sleeping together." Of course, they didn’t understand what that phrase means to humans… any more than Counselor understood what a man gets to feeling when he wakes up and there’s someone stroking his face. Mandasars never think about sex stuff at all, except during egg-heat. They know humans work differently, but Mandasars don’t realize how much… um… how often… how persistently certain urges keep poking their way into a Homo sapiens’ imagination.
(Close your eyes, and a gentle’s voice sounds pretty much like a human woman’s. Her hand feels the same too. And so soft.)
Looking at Counselor, feeling her hand on my cheek, I found myself remembering that kiss aboard Willow — the woman pulling me in tight, the perfume in her hair… a woman who was exactly like Admiral Ramos except she wasn’t… and Festina herself, lying beside me in the dark forest, looking up at the stars…
Crazy, I thought to myself. My brain must still be jumbled, going all swimmy with what-ifs. Festina was pretty and kind, but she was an admiral; as for Counselor, she was just in my bed because I’d been sick. Why was I so eager to get dumb ideas about every female around me: an admiral and an alien for heaven’s sake… and I was even having thoughts about Kaisho, with her skintight clothes and her dangerous glowing thighs…
"Teelu," Counselor whispered. "Are you troubled?"
I reached up and took her hand, pulling it gingerly away from my face. "Maybe you shouldn’t call me Teelu, okay? It’s kind of…" I wanted to say "sacrilegious," but that would upset her. "You shouldn’t overuse the word," I mumbled.
"Very well," she said. "Is there anything else I should or shouldn’t do?" She asked it in a soft sweet whisper, still holding my hand — all innocently intimate, not knowing how complicated things can get inside a human’s head. When you’re tired and lonely, you can catch yourself thinking, maybe, maybe, she really meant…
No. She didn’t.
But I couldn’t get my thoughts aimed any other direction. I told myself, Don’t be stupid, she’s a big brown lobster. It didn’t help. I’d had more kindness in my life from Mandasars than I ever got from humans. Lying beside one again brought back the golden days when the war hadn’t started and Sam was alive and we were all twenty years younger…
I slipped my hand out of Counselor’s grasp and eased down on my pallet: rolling away from her, flat on my back, feeling lumpish and rude. "Where’s Admiral Ramos?" I asked.
"She left with the other human — the one with frightening legs."
"Are they coming back?"
"In the morning. But the admiral had to arrange a journey. To Troyen."
Counselor leaned in close to my face, her whiskers trembling. Her snout brushed lightly against my cheek, delicate and cool. Gentles have no nose-spike; just soft skin that smells faintly of ginger. "Are you really going to the home-world?" "Admiral Ramos wants me to. She thinks I know the lay of the land."
"You do," Counselor said. "You were the high queen’s consort."
"That was twenty years ago. Before the war." I closed my eyes. "All the time I stayed at the moonbase, I did my best not to hear what was happening on the planet. The observers couldn’t tell much anyway — with all the rogue nano on Troyen, nobody can use radios or computers or anything, so there’s nothing to listen in on. Our satellites kept track of troop movements, but when you don’t know who’s in charge of which army… half the time, the observers just made stuff up so their reports wouldn’t look too skimpy. Nobody really knows what’s happening."
Counselor lay silent for a few seconds. I wanted to see the expression on her face, but decided eye contact would be a mistake: she’d take my hand again or go back to stroking my cheek. "Admiral Ramos has been investigating the recruiters," Counselor murmured at last. "The woman with the red legs said the admiral tries to prevent regrettable things. Admiral Ramos is what you call a watchdog and a troubleshooter."
I didn’t know the navy had such things, but I was glad they put someone like Festina in the position. "She thinks another admiral is helping the recruiters," I said. "It makes her mad, and she’s trying to set things right."
"Then Admiral Ramos is a good hume," Counselor murmured. "Even if she wants to take you away from us."
"Um."
When I looked at Counselor, her face was sad — the terrible kind of sad where someone is trying hard not to show it, and it spills through anyway.
"Do you want to — go away?" Counselor asked.
"No," I told her. "But Admiral Ramos thinks people on Troyen might know who’s behind the recruiters. She said it could solve your problems."
"She told me the same," Counselor said. "But it’s painful to gain you and lose you in the same day."
Suddenly, she bent in and pressed the soft end of her snout against my lips. A kiss. I’d never seen a gentle do that on Troyen. It must have been something she’d learned on Celestia, a gesture picked up from the humans who took care of her in childhood. So awkward and clumsy, like a little girl imitating adult things — she wrapped one arm around my neck and kept her nose against me… not moving her mouth, just holding it tight to my face as if she didn’t know a kiss could be anything else.
I pulled back away from her, feeling awkward and clumsy myself. "It’s all right," I whispered. "Really. It’ll be all right."