Tatty made up her mind. Chan might need her help for the next few hours, and that took priority over everything else.
She ran through into the kitchen, grabbed containers of drink and packaged food, and rushed back to sit beside Chan. He remained unconscious while she ate a makeshift meal, but he was beginning to mutter and whimper in his sleep. Tatty was increasingly reluctant to leave him. She glanced at her watch. It was almost time for Chan’s scheduled sleep. She dimmed the chamber lights and quietly lay down at his side.
Such vigil was no novelty. She had sat often with Chan after a Stimulator session, telling him stories until he was relaxed enough to go to sleep. Soon after their arrival on Horus she had changed his bed for a much broader one, so that she could stretch out beside him and tell simple tales of life on Earth and in the Gallimaufries, stories that drew his attention until the tears ended and exhaustion took over.
Tonight was not much different. Chan drifted toward wakefulness, snuggling up close as he did so. His forehead was a little warm, though not enough to be called a fever.
Tatty closed her own eyes. The significance of the day’s events was coming home to her. Suppose that Chan had made a crucial breakthrough? Then he might be on the road to normal intelligence. That was the finest news in the world — she had grown as fond of Chan as she had ever been of anyone. But there were other implications … great implications …
If his treatment is ending, I’ll be free! Out of this prison. Free to leave Horus, free to return to my own life on Earth. Less than two months, but I feel as though I’ve been away forever. Can I go back there, now — and what will I do about Esro? Do I want to torment him, as he has tormented me?
“Tatty!” Chan jerked up out of half-sleep.
“Here.” She put her arms around him. “You’re all right. Everything’s all right.”
“No.” He put his arms around her. “It’s not all right. I wish I could go back. It used to be easy, and now it’s hard. It’s … what is the word? … complicated?”
“That’s the real world, Chan.”
“It was the real world before. My real world. Tatty, I don’t like this. I’m scared.”
“Hold on to me, Chan. You’re right, it’s not easy. Being human is never easy. But you have friends. I’ll help you, and I’ll take care of you.”
Chan nodded. But he began to cry again, deep-chested sobs that went on minute after minute. Tatty felt the tears in her own eyes. It had seemed so obvious that Chan would be better if the Stimulator worked, that afterwards everything would be better. Now she sorrowed for the loss of the innocent child. Her baby was gone, and he would never come back.
She cradled him to her, stroking his head and patting his shoulders. She became aware of another change in him, one that filled her with foreboding. Chan was becoming physically aroused, moving his body uneasily against her.
Tatty had been warned of this in the first briefing. Flammarion had told her that Chan’s adult body might announce its presence, and he had emphasized that rejection would be bad for Chan. There could be permanent psychological damage. Tatty had listened and nodded. There were far bigger problems to worry about.
“Tatty!” Chan was frightened. Long past puberty, he had always been blissfully unaware of his own sexuality. Now uncontrollable urges were possessing him, and he had no idea what was happening.
It was the fear in his voice that made Tatty ignore her own worries. “It’s all right, Chan. You’re going to be fine. It’s not a bad thing.”
Not bad for you. Bad for me. It makes no difference. Chan needs me, and no one else cares if I even exist.
Gently, Tatty guided Chan along another critical segment of his rite of passage from child to man. She held him, and at the same time despised herself.
Worst of all was her inability to remain aloof. Two months was a long time — too long. Tatty felt her own growing response and fought against it. She shivered, hesitated, resisted, but finally groaned and clutched him to her.
During lovemaking he had begun to weep again, long mournful sobs that shook his body. At the moment of his climax he cried out, “Leah! Oh, Leah.”
At the height of her own passion, Tatty wept also. Her tears were silent. But she thought of Esro Mondrian, and in the final seconds she at last whispered his name.
Chapter 14
Twenty thousand years ago humans had hunted the woolly rhinoceros and fought the sabertooth tiger. Five thousand years ago the quarry was wild boar and bears and hippopotami. One thousand years ago, out on the great plains of Africa and India, the prize kills were lions, elephants, and tigers.
The great game preserves of Earth’s equatorial and polar regions still existed, but hunting was strictly forbidden. Blood lust had to find other outlets. Adestis was one of the most recent, and perhaps the best ever.
Dougal MacDougal loved Adestis. Lotos Sheldrake had never tried it until today, but she hated the very idea of it. She had come along as part of MacDougal’s safari only for her own purposes.
She clung to her bright-sided weapon and struggled across spongy ground after the Ambassador. The air was thick and humid, and it was filled with large, drifting spores that floated along easily in the hardly noticeable gravity. Lotos batted them away from her head and peered in front of her for a first sight of the group’s destination.
There it was. No more than a few minutes walk away, the enormous brown tower reached far up towards the grey sky. Already Lotos could see the first file of pale-bodied warriors moving nervously around the entrance holes. They were tasting the air, feeling the approach of danger with their sensitive antennas.
Dougal MacDougal strode confidently in front, heading straight for the giant round-topped citadel. The forty other party members followed, with Lotos bringing up the far rear.
She suspected that she had too much imagination for this sort of enterprise. Already she could visualize the curved jaws of the defending soldiers tight around her waist, or the sticky and madly irritant spray enveloping her. The projectile weapon that she was carrying would kill a warrior outright — if she aimed true and made a hit in the head or the even more vulnerable neck. A body shot would not do. The soldier might die eventually, but before it did so the creature’s dying reflexes would make it fight on, killing anything that did not smell and taste right. And the soldiers were only the first line of defense. Beyond them lay the dark interior tunnels, swarming with their own defenders loyal to the death. Surrender or acceptance of defeat was unthinkable to the inhabitants of the tower. For the attacking party to succeed, it would have to penetrate to the central chamber, and kill its giant occupant.
Dougal MacDougal led the way to the base of the structure. Avoiding the main entrances, he fired a thread-thin grapnel line to a point high above ground level. With a running pulley he hauled himself easily up, to many times his own height. In half a minute he was braced against the hard wall of the mound, chipping a secure foothold. The others followed, helping each other. There was little risk at this stage, since even a direct fall would not be fatal.
Clinging to the pulley line, half a dozen of the attacking group lifted sharp picks. They hacked at the hard cement of the mound until they had made an opening big enough to crawl through.
Far below, the soldiers were in total confusion. They ran here and there, touching each other with their antennae and criss-crossing the approach routes to the tunnel entrances. None thought to crawl up the side of the tower.
“All right.” MacDougal was panting and excited — far more enthusiastic for this than for anything in his official life. “That’s big enough. Everybody inside.”