15
Athaclena
That night their tiny campfire cast yellow and orange flickerings against the trunks of the near-oaks.
“I was so hungry, even vac-pac stew tasted delicious,” Robert sighed as he put aside his bowl and spoon. “I’d planned to make us a meal of baked plate ivy roots, but I don’t guess either of us will have much appetite fpr that delicacy soon.”
Athaclena felt she understood Robert’s tendency to make irrelevant remarks like these. Tymbrimi and Terran both had ways of making light of disaster — part of the unusual pattern of similarity between the two species.
She had eaten sparingly herself. Her body had nearly purged the peptides left over from the gheer reaction, but she still felt a little sore after this afternoon’s adventure.
Overhead a dark band of Galactic dust clouds spanned fully twenty percent of the sky, outlined by bright hydrogen nebulae. Athaclena watched the starry vault, her corona only slightly puffed out above her ears. From the forest she felt the tiny, anxious emotions of little native creatures.
“Robert?”
“Hmmm? Yes, Clennie?”
“Robert, why did you remove the crystals from our radio?”
After a pause, his voice was serious, subdued. “I’d hoped not to have to tell you for a few days, Athaclena. But last night I saw the communication satellites being destroyed. That could only mean the Galactics have arrived, as our parents expected.
“The radio’s crystals can be picked up by shipborne resonance detectors, even when they aren’t powered. I took ours out so there’d be no chance of being found that way. It’s standard doctrine.”
Athaclena felt a tremor at the tip of her ruff, just above her nose, that shivered over her scalp and down her back. So, it has begun.
Part of her longed to be with her father. It still hurt that he had sent her away rather than allow her to stay at his side where she could help him.
The silence stretched. She kenned Robert’s nervousness. Twice, he seemed about to speak, then stopped, thinking better of it. Finally, she nodded. “I agree with your logic in removing the crystals, Robert. I even think I understand the protective impulse that made you refrain from telling me about it. You should not do that again, though. It was foolish.”
Robert agreed, seriously. “I won’t, Athaclena.”
They lay in silence for a while, until Robert reached over with his good hand and touched hers. “Clennie, I … I want you to know I’m grateful. You saved my life—”
“Robert,” she sighed tiredly.
“—but it goes beyond that. When you came into my mind you showed me things about myself… things I’d never known before. That’s an important favor. You can read all about it in textbooks, if you want. Self-deception and neuroses are two particularly insidious human plagues.”
“They are not unique to humans, Robert.”
“No, I guess not. What you saw in my mind was probably nothing by pre-Contact standards. But given our history, well, even the sanest of us needs reminding from time to time.”
Athaclena had no idea what to say, so she remained silent. To have lived in Humanity’s awful dark ages must have been frightening indeed.
Robert cleared his throat. “What I’m trying to say is that I know how far you’ve gone to adapt yourself — learning human expressions, making little changes in your physiology …”
“An experiment.” She shrugged, another human mannerism. She suddenly realized that her face felt warm. Capillaries were opening in that human reaction she had thought so quaint. She was blushing!
“Yeah, an experiment. But by rights it ought to go both ways, Clennie. Tymbrimi are renowned around the Five Galsbaes for their adaptability. But we humans are capable of learning a thing or two, also.”
She looked up. “What do you mean, Robert?”
“I mean that I’d like you to show me some more about Tymbrimi ways. Your customs. I want to know what your landsmen do that’s equivalent to an amazed stare, or a nod, or a grin.”
Again, there was a flicker. Athaclena’s corona reached, but the delicate, simple, ghostly glyph he had formed vanished like smoke. Perhaps he was not even aware he had crafted it.
“Um,” she said, blinking and shaking her head. “I cannot be sure, Robert. But I think perhaps youhave already begun.”
Robert was stiff and feverish when they struck camp the next morning. He could only take so much anesthetic for his fractured arm and remain able to walk.
Athaclena stashed most of his gear in the notch of a gum beech tree and cut slashes in the bark to mark the site.
Actually, she doubted anyone would ever be back to reclaim it. “We must get you to a physician,” she said, feeling his brow. His raised temperature clearly was not a good sign.
Robert indicated a narrow slot between the mountains to the south. “Over that way, two days march, there’s the Mendoza Freehold. Mrs. Mendoza was a nurse practitioner before she married Juan and took up farming.”
Athaclena looked uncertainly at the pass. They would have to climb nearly a thousand meters to get over it.
“Robert, are you sure this is the best route? I’m certain I have intermittently sensed sophonts emoting from much nearer, over that line of hills to the east.”
Robert leaned on his makeshift staff and began moving up the southward trail. “Come on, Clennie,” he said over his shoulder. “I know you want to meet a Garthling, but now’s hardly the time. We can go hunting for native pre-sentients after I’ve been patched up.”
Athaclena stared after him, astonished by the illogic of his remark. She caught up with him. “Robert, that was a strange thing to say! How could I think of seeking out native creatures, no matter how mysterious, until you were tended! The sophonts I have felt to the east were clearly humans and chimps, although I admit there was a strange, added element, almost like …”
“Aha!” Robert smiled, as if she had made a confession. He walked on.
Amazed, Athaclena tried to probe his feelings, but the human’s discipline arid determination was incredible for a member of a wolfling race. All she could tell was that he was disturbed — and that it had something to do with her mention of sapient thoughts east of here.
Oh, to be a true telepath! Once more she wondered why the Tymbrimi Grand Council had not defied the rules of the Uplift Institute and gone ahead to develop the capability. She had sometimes envied humans the privacy they could build around their lives and resented the gossipy invasiveness of her own culture. But right now she wanted only to break in there and find out what he was hiding!
Her corona waved, and if there had been any Tymbrimi within half a mile they would have winced at her angry, pungent opinion of the way of things.
Robert was showing difficulty before they reached the crest of the first ridge, httle more than an hour later. Athaclena knew by now that the glistening perspiration on his brow meant the same thing as a reddening and fluffing of a Tymbrimi’s corona — overheating.
When she overheard him counting under his breath, she knew that they would have to rest. “No.” He shook his head. His voice was ragged. “Let’s just get past this ridge and into the next valley. From there on it’s shaded all the way to the pass.” Robert kept trudging.
“There is shade enough here,” she insisted, and pulled him over to a rock jumble covered by creepers with umbrella-like leaves, all linked by the ubiquitous transfer-vines to the forest in the valley floor.
Robert sighed as she helped him sit back against a boulder in the shade. She wiped his forehead, then began unwrapping his splinted right arm. He hissed through his teeth.