Joe wanted to tell this billionaire’s daughter that she’d get his vote if he were judging any contest she entered, but was far too shy for that. Instead he tried to bootstrap himself up from being a mumbling idiot by playing host.
“Can I get you something?” he asked hopefully. “A soda? Some coffee or tea? I don’t drink so I don’t have any alcohol here, but Mabel could find you some beer or wine if you wanted.” He hesitated, trying to guess what someone like her might want. “I kind of doubt they’ve got any champagne, but I do have some tlat if you’d like a cup of that.”
At first his nervous stab at hospitality seemed to amuse her, then suddenly she gazed at him harder, her smile fading. “Tlat, huh? The BAA must be paying you pretty damn good if you can afford to drink that stuff.” Joe swallowed, fairly sure the knot going down his throat was his foot.
She sighed and shook her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be so rude. I know that our site managers customarily give goodies like tlat or good whiskey or whatever to the BAA agents they work with. Grease for the wheels of commerce, right?”
“I guess,” he answered miserably. Why hadn’t he just come right out and said Oh, by the way, I take bribes from your company. Would you like some?
“I can’t even blame you folks for taking them. You’re underpaid, underequipped, outnumbered, and all on your own. Small luxuries like this office I assume we’re providing make your job more bearable. But I hate seeing it. The BAA and BCT have to get along, but getting too cozy opens the door to abuses on both sides.”
Joe could only listen in abject silence, feeling guiltier by the second. She was right. He was pond scum.
She grimaced, then gave him an apologetic look. “And now I’m making you think I’m a bitch, too. Sorry, sermon’s over. I’m not condemning you, Joe. You seem like a very nice man and I’m sure you’re doing a good job here. Pretend I’m as nice as you, not some pushy broad with a chip on her shoulder.” She stood up and smiled sweetly. “Could we pass on the tlat and get right to the tour? What I really want to do is meet the guymarguyimaranguyital.”
This woman was full of surprises. She’d used the name the Guys used for themselves and pronounced it perfectly.
“Uh, sure,” he said, relieved that she’d let the other matter drop. “I’m ready if you are.”
“So, Joe,” she said as they exited the elevator and headed for the combination door and airlock leading outside. “You’re Mohawk, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” he answered, taken off-guard by this sudden conversational turn. “How did you know?” To most everyone else all redskins looked the same. He had that same problem himself with Orientals. Even though he’d grown up seeing plenty of Chinese, Japanese and Korean tourists he still got them confused.
“I read your file. But even without that I could have told by your body type, your accent, and by that vest you’re wearing. Which, by the way, is a really wonderful piece.”
He’d forgotten he still had it on. “Thanks. My grandfather gave it to me.”
“I’m sure you know that it’s a sign he holds you in very high esteem.”
“I guess,” Joe answered unenthusiastically, knowing the old man didn’t understand that his job wasn’t the noble pursuit he thought it would be.
“The emblems painted on it tell me it belonged to one of the Salmon Warriors of the early twenty-first. They were a small pan-tribal group that dedicated itself to ecological preservation and renewal, beginning with their ancestral fishing waters and hunting lands. His giving it to you means that he considers you to be a warrior for and protector of the sacred.”
He stared at her. “How do you know all that?” When I don’t.
She chuckled. “I could have had myself announced as Doctor Serena etcetera, but I don’t like sounding too imposing.”
That made him snort. “Right. As if being the daughter of one of the richest men alive wasn’t imposing. So you’re a doctor, too? What kind?”
“Anthropology. I also hold degrees in Ethnobotany, Exobiology, and Exoanthropology.”
So much for her being impressed with his measly MBA. The steel and perspyl door slid open in front of them and they went on out into the bright sunshine. The tropical heat and humidity rolled over them in a wave, carrying the scent of exotic flowers and rotting vegetation, the buzz of insects, the calls of Marguy’s version of birds. Wrapped greenly around the clearing where BCT’s operation was based was a jungle equal in fecundity to any Earth had ever produced. He watched her sniff the air and smile in anticipation.
“Those must be useful, um, disciplines for a woman in your position.” There, he didn’t always have to sound like a moron.
“They help, sure. But I didn’t go Anthro because it would be a good career move—some stupid MBA would probably have been a better bet. I really love learning about new places and people and customs. It’s a lot more exciting than shopping for the right clothes to wear to the right places so you can fit in with the right people.” She looked around, obviously finding her surroundings more interesting than the topic of conversation. “Enough about me. Tell me about the guymarguyimaranguyital.”
“Well, to begin with, we call them Guys for short.”
Her brow furrowed in a scowl. “Isn’t that kind of demeaning?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s what they told us to call them. You see, they understand that our language is much different from theirs, and we generally use a lot shorter words. They also told us shorter names to use for them as individuals. One Guy we’ll probably meet is called Bull. His full name is,” he took a deep breath, “Bulaguymarguyhabulliskabullimarguydamar, which even he admits is a pretty big mouthful.”
She laughed. “I think he’s right. I’ll call the Guy Bull.”
Joe headed them out along the eastern path which would lead to the place where Bull could be usually found, a small glade by a bubbling spring and pool. “So what do you want to know?”
“Everything. The dossier I was expecting on the natives and our arrangement with them somehow never made it to me, so I’m starting almost from scratch. Is it true that each Guy is actually two separate biological entities?”
“Sure is. When we see Bull we see the body of an imarguymarguyakh, the dominant land predator on this planet’s single continent. But the, um, person we talk to is a soft-bodied parasite that lives in a bony cavity on the underside of its head. I guess you could call that part the real Guy; alone, an imar is about as smart as an alligator and a lot nastier. Guys have certain telepathic abilities. In the beginning—or at least way back when—they used to survive by calling small animals to themselves, entering their bodies and scrounging what they needed to survive from their systems. Over time they got bigger and smarter, able to not only enter but control larger animals. Eventually they evolved to the point where they could take command of the imars, entering their bodies through the breathing slits just below the eyes and taking up residence in that cavity I mentioned. That puts them in contact with the imars’ fairly primitive nervous system, and they control it like it was their own. That made them the dominant species because wild imars were no challenge to ones controlled by a serious intelligence.”
“Do they still call imars like that?” she asked as they left the clearing and stepped into the leafy shade.
The Guy-made path they followed was wide and winding, the ground hard-packed and smooth. Because of his kind’s preternatural awareness of their surroundings, Bull probably already knew they were on their way to see him. Everybody thought it was hard to sneak up on an Indian. Sneaking up on a Guy was just plain impossible.