He refused to listen. Of all the people in his hive, Zeeleepull had the most romantic notions about the planet he’d left as a hatchling. He told me he’d been brought up by elderly human sisters, Willa and Walda, who’d devoted themselves to raising the boy in accordance with his sacred heritage. The way he spoke of them, I just knew the women didn’t have a clue what they were talking about — their heads had got crammed with off-kilter ideas about Troyen, sparked by a ten-day trip they’d made in their thirties. That trip must have been the one impulsive thing the sisters had ever done, and they’d built their lives around it ever after… which explains why they leapt at the chance to take a baby Mandasar under their roof and acquaint him with his fabulous culture.
No wonder Zeeleepull spoke such bad Troyenese. And worse English. He’d come to human language very late, because the sisters didn’t want to "pollute his mental development with contaminating influences." When they finally realized he had to learn English to communicate with his fellow Mandasars — the other kids spoke English 99 percent of the time — Willa and Walda encouraged Zeeleepull to use English words but Troyenese syntax, so he wouldn’t "warp his brain’s neural connections" with an alien grammar.
I got the feeling Zeeleepull could speak normal English if he wanted to, but now he was making a political point. He’d even persuaded his fellow warriors to speak the same way, especially when they were out on maneuvers together. Like a secret code that proved you belonged to the club.
It didn’t hurt that Counselor and the workers loved Zeeleepull to pieces for the bullheaded way he stuck to his twisted-up word structures. Us guys — even when we’re big red platonic lobsters — we put on silly poses to impress the girls.
No rutabagas got weeded that day — when Festina’s skimmer set down on the road, every Mandasar in the valley was there to watch. A big colorful horde of them, reds and whites and browns, all jostled each other for the best view. It reminded me of something Sam said as we watched a riot from my palace balcony: "Like a water tank in a seafood restaurant: lobsters crammed in shoulder to shoulder." When I thought about it now, it’d been a cruel, mean thing for Sam to say… but she had a point. Mandasars cram together a lot; they like it. They’re the sort of species who snuggle together all the time — who bed down in a huddle, and who press into a single corner of a room rather than spacing themselves evenly around. Even these kids raised by humans… you’d think they’d be taught to maintain some personal distance, but there they were on the road, practically crawling on top of each other as the skimmer settled down to the pavement. Even so, they managed to skootch together a little more to clear a path for me up to the side hatch.
The hatch opened. Festina hopped out and smiled when she saw me. "Edward! You’re looking better. Good. Great. Very fine." She was eyeing me up and down. "You had us worried when you passed out last night."
"I wasn’t worried," said a voice inside the skimmer. "He was just exhausted." Kaisho’s wheelchair floated into the sunlight and lowered itself to the road. Her hair looked beautifully combed this morning — combed so it covered her face like a silver-black veil, very neat and glossy. Even the Balrog looked well-groomed. Under the bright orange sun, you couldn’t tell Kaisho’s legs glowed on their own; they just looked like thick beds of moss, as unthreatening as red pillows.
"Well," Festina said, still giving me the once-over (the twice-over by now), "you look damned terrific for a man who was poisoned yesterday. Are you ready to go?"
"Um." I leaned in, and whispered, "Is it okay if I bring some company?"
"Who?"
I pointed behind me. Counselor, Zeeleepull, and the workers were lined up looking freshly scrubbed and gleamy bright themselves… all except Nib, who’d tried to paint a BON VOYAGE sign and got smears of green paint all over its just-washed white hands. (Workers!) Naturally, Zeeleepull carried the luggage; most of the hive’s worldly possessions were strapped to his back, boxed up in a wooden crate labeled ONIONS.
Festina sighed deeply. "How many of them do you plan on bringing?"
"Five."
Counselor and the others waved gleefully — antennas as well as hands.
"Told you," Kaisho whispered to Festina.
"I could have guessed myself," Festina muttered back. "Are they all right?"
"They won’t cause trouble," I promised.
"That’s not what I meant." Festina motioned to Kaisho. "You and the Balrog check them out."
Kaisho’s wheelchair glided toward the five Mandasars… and all of a sudden, the rest of the crowd scrambled back, putting a good healthy distance between themselves and the woman’s mossy legs. I don’t know if they’d heard gossip about the Balrog since last night, or if they all just spontaneously decided they didn’t like the moss’s smell. Either way, they were doing their best to keep clear; and from the looks on their faces, Counselor and the others would have been turning tail too, if they didn’t think they’d hurt their chance of seeing Troyen.
"What’s Kaisho doing?" I whispered to Festina.
"The Balrog can supposedly determine whether a being is sentient. Don’t ask me how it works — maybe a killer gives off non-sentient psychic vibrations. The damned moss isn’t perfectly telepathic, thank God, but it can sometimes do an uncanny job of peeking into someone’s mind."
No kidding, I thought. Out loud, I said, "You really think the Mandasars are dangerous non-sentients?"
"No." Festina gave me an apologetic look. "But we have to make sure, Edward. Otherwise, we could end up like Willow — killed for not being careful enough. The League expects us to make our best efforts not to violate the law."
"So you don’t trust the kids, but you trust the Balrog?"
"In this particular instance, I trust the Balrog’s judgment. It doesn’t mean I trust the Balrog in general — that fuzzy-assed bastard scares the piss out of me. But on our upcoming trip, the Balrog’s life is at stake too."
"Why?"
"Kaisho’s coming with us to Troyen," Festina replied. "If one of your Mandasars is non-sentient and the Balrog lies to us about that, it’s the Balrog who’ll die when our ship crosses the line. We mere humans will be blameless; the League won’t fault us for being deceived by a superior species."
As she spoke, Festina had a grim little smile on her face… and for a second, I thought she might be hoping the Balrog would get executed by the League. If there was no other way to get rid of the creature — if you couldn’t scrape it off its host — then maybe you’d look for situations that’d kill the Balrog without hurting the human underneath.
A few seconds before, I was going to ask Festina why she wanted Kaisho to come with us to Troyen… but I decided I didn’t want to know.
The wheelchair drifted around each Mandasar in turn — Counselor trying to look composed, Zeeleepull trying to look tough, the workers trying to look so meekly unimportant they wouldn’t be worth eating — while Kaisho barely turned her head to give the kids a glance. Why would she? She couldn’t see for all the hair in front of her face, so why pretend to stare at anyone?
"Why does she wear her hair like that?" I asked Festina. "Does she have moss on her face? Is she really really…" I stopped. Considering the blotch on the admiral’s own cheek, there was no polite way to finish my question.
But Festina guessed what I was going to say. "Is she really really ugly?" Festina suggested. "Is she disfigured?" "Um. Sorry."
"No," the admiral said, "it’s a valid question. Especially since Kaisho used to be an Explorer. You know she must have had something wrong with her."