"I suppose so. But we don't like pain; it churns up the delicate brain. Those are some of the lessons I haven't had yet. I had to only once, when my host was playing too near a dangerous cliff. And then I soothed it with pleasure right after it moved back. We use it only in emergencies, if the host threatens to harm itself, rare things like that. …Or, wait, I remember, if the host gets into what you call a fight. …You can see it's complicated."
"I see," Coati repeats. Uneasily she realizes that this young alien passenger might have more control over her than was exactly neat. But it seems to be so well-meaning, to have no intent at all to harm her. She relaxes — unable to suppress a twinge of wonder whether her easy emotional acceptance of its presence in — whew! — her brain might not be a feeling partly engineered by the alien. Maybe the really neat thing to do would be to ask her passenger to withdraw, right now. Could she fix some comfortable place for it to stay outside her? Maybe she'll do that, when they get a bit closer to FedBase.
Meanwhile, what about her plan for visiting the planet Boney and Ko were headed for? If she could pick up a trace of them, it would be a real help to FedBase. And wouldn't it be a shame to come all this way without taking a look?
That argument with herself is soon over. And her young appetite is making itself felt. She picks out a ration snack and starts to set the drive course for the planets, explaining between munches what she plans to do before returning to FedBase. Her passenger raises no objection to this delay.
"I am so grateful, so grateful you would think to deliver me," her voice says with some difficulty around the cheese bites.
As Coati opens the cold-keeper, a flash of gold attracts her attention. It's more of that gold dust, clinging to the chilly surface. She bats it away, and some floats to her face.
"By the way, what is this stuff? It came in the message pipe, with you. Can you see it? Hey, it's on my legs, too." She extends one,
"Yes," her "different" voice replies. "They are seeds."
She's getting used to this weird dialogue with herself. It reminds her of a show she saw, where a ventriloquist animated a dummy. "I'm a ventriloquist's dummy," she chuckles to herself. "Only I'm the ventriloquist, too.
"What kind of seeds, of what?" she asks aloud.
"Ours." There's a sound, or feeling, like a sigh, as if a troubling thought had passed. Then the voice says more briskly, "Wait, I forgot. I should release a chemical to keep them off you. They are attracted to — to the pheromones of life."
"I didn't know I knew those words," Coati tells her invisible companion. "I guess you were really into my vocabulary while I slept."
"Oh, yes. I labored."
A moment later Coati feels a slight flush prickling her skin. Is this the "chemical"? Before she can feel alarmed, it passes. And she sees that the floating dust — or seeds— has fallen away from her as if repelled by a charge.
"Good-o." She eats a bit more, finishing the course-set. "That reminds me, what do you call your race? And you, you must have a name. We should get better acquainted!" She laughs for two; all sense of trouble has gone.
"I am of the Eea, or Eeadron. Personally I'm called Syliobene."
"Hello, Syliobene! I'm Coati Cass. Coati."
"Hello, Coati Cass Coati."
"No, I meant, just Coati. Cass is my family name."
"Ah, 'family.' We wondered about that, with the other Humans."
"Sure, I'll be glad to explain. But later—" Coati cuts herself off. "I mean, there'll be plenty of time to explain everything while we slowly approach the planet orbiting that star. And I think I'm entitled to your story first, Syliobene, since I'm providing the body. Don't you agree that's fair?"
"Oh, yes. I must take care not to be selfish, when you do so much."
Somehow this speech for the first time conveys to Coati that her passenger really is a young, almost childish being. The big words it had found in her mind had kept misleading her. But now Syliobene sounds so much like herself reminding herself of her manners. She chuckles again, benignly. Could it be that they are two kids — even two females — together, out looking for adventure in the starfields? And it's nice to have this unexpected companion; much as Coati loves to read and view, she's beginning to get the idea that a lot of space voyaging consists of lonely sitting and waiting, when you aren't in cold-sleep. Of course, she guiltily reminds herself, she could be checking the charts to see if all the coordinates of the relatively few stars out here are straight. But Boney and Ko have undoubtedly done all that — after all, this was their second trip to this sun; on the first one they merely spotted planets. And learning about an alien race is surely important.
She leans back comfortably and asks, "Now, what about your planet? What does it look like? And your hosts — how does that work? How did such a system ever evolve in the first place? Hey, I know — can you make me see an image, a vision of your home?"
"Alas, no. Such a feat is beyond my powers. Making speech is the utmost I can do."
"Well, tell me about it all."
"I will. But first I must say, we have no such — no such material equipment, no such technology as you have. What techniques we have are of the mind. I am filled with amazement at all you do. Your race has achieved marvels! I saw a distant world when I looked through your device — a world! And you speak of visiting it as casually as we would go to a lake or a tree farm. A wonder!"
"Yes, we have a lot of technology. So do some other races, like the Swain and the Moom. But I want yours, Syliobene! To start with, what's this business of Eea and Eeadron?"
"Ah. Yes, of course. Well, I personally, just myself, am an Eea. But when I am in my proper host, which is a Dron, I am an Eeadron. An Eea by itself is almost nothing. It can do nothing but wait, depending on its primitive tropisms, until a host comes by. It is very rare for Eea to become detached as you found me — except when we are visiting another Eeadron for news or instruction. And then we leave much of ourselves in place, in our personal Dron, to which we return. I, being young, was able to detach myself almost completely to go with the Humans as one of their visitors."
"Oh — were there other Eea inside Boney and Ko when they took off?"
"Yes — one each, at least."
"What would you call that — Eeahumans?" Coati laughs.
But her companion does not seem to join in. "They were very old," she hears herself mutter softly. And then something that sounds like, "no idea of the length of the trip…" "So you came away when they messaged. Whew — wild act! Oh, Syliobene, I'm so glad I intercepted it and saved you."
"I too, dear Coati Cass."
"But now we've got to get serious about this crazy system of yours. Are you the only people on your planet that have their brains in separate bodies? — Oh, wait. I just realized we should record all this; we'll never be able to go over it twice. Hold while I put in a new cassette."
She gets set up, and bethinks herself to make it sound professional with an introduction.
"This is Coati Cass recording, on board the CC-One, approaching unnamed planet at—'' She gives all the coordinates, the standard date and time, and the fact that Boney and Ko were last reported to be headed toward this planet.
"Before that they landed on a planet at thirty-twenty north and reported a First Contact with life-forms there. Their report is in a message forwarded to Base before I came here. Now it seems that when they left the planet, some of the life-forms came with them; specifically, two at least of the almost invisible Eea, in their heads. And some seeds, and another Eea, a very young one, who came along, she says, for the adventure. This young Eea moved to the message pipe, not realizing how long the trip would be, and was almost dead when I opened the pipe. She — I call it 'she' because we haven't got sexes, if any, straightened out yet — she moved over to me when I opened the pipe, and is right now residing in my head, where she can see and hear through my senses, and speak with my voice. I am interviewing her about her planet, Nolian. Now remember, all the voice you hear will be mine — but I myself am the one asking the questions. I think you will soon be able to tell when Syllobene — that's her name — is speaking with my voice; it's higher and sort of constricted, and she uses words I didn't know I knew. She learned all that while I was in cold-sleep coming here. Now, Syllobene, would you please repeat what you've told me so far, about the Eea and the Eeadron?"