The Gentle Seduction (13 page)

There were almost 200 quiet, expectant Rosans listening there in the stone hall. Sorrel cleared his throat. "I want to apologize for the crowding. It looks like our cavern is a bit small for our task. However, a new cavenet is nearing completion, and we've been assured that it'll be ours once it's ready." Sorrel realized it wouldn't make any difference to these students, who would pass into bloodfeast long before the new accommodations were complete. "Anyway, this is Calvin Minov, a spacetime physicist, and this is Wandra Furenz, a topocurve mathematician. Since I know absolutely nothing about faster-than-light communication, or space-time, or anything that has to do with engineering, I'll give the floor to them."

Cal climbed the low step stiffly, followed by a smiling Wandra.

Sorrel looked at Cal. "Cal, why don't you start off, give them an idea of where we're going, how, and why?"

"Yeah, sure, uh," he turned to the class and froze. Sorrel pressed a copy of the manuscript explaining the theories into his hand—a manuscript that Cal had written. "Just tell them what you know, Cal," he whispered in Anglic.

Cal looked down at the book, seemed to remember where he was, and turned to the lightboard, calling up the first diagram. Sorrel stepped down and examined the roomful of FTLcom students.

They were the best, chosen by Sorrel in consultation with the Chief Geneticist and the Assistant Coordinator of the Bloodkeep; each student had six good parents with backgrounds in science, engineering, or mathematics behind him. The students were young as well, with fat still in their cheeks, not only because young ones would have more time to assimilate more material, but also because only a youth would sit still for the slow ambling ways of humans.

Sorrel turned his attention back to the teacher. Cal, cool and aloof though he might be, was warming to his subject. He talked faster as he went along, and he talked still faster as he realized that no matter how fast he talked his students would keep up with him. In fact, Sorrel knew, the worst mistake Cal could make would be to talk too slowly, for then his students would lose concentration.

Ooops—one of them asked him a question, with such swift sentences he couldn't follow . . . there would be a great deal of adjusting to do. Not to mention the problems it would pose if the humans got too attached to any of the Rosans they taught. . . . At least Cal might be immune to that, but Sorrel could see long, terrible times with Wandra. He'd have to take a very close look at her ego chart. For the first time Sorrel felt that he belonged on this trip, not just because he would awe the natives and make things move swiftly, but because he would be useful as well.

A right arm wrapped itself around his left, and Wandra whispered in his ear. "Well, I think Cal's going to do all right without us. We're planning to take two-hour shifts in the teaching with one-hour breaks after each pair of lectures, so the students'll have a chance once in a while to behave like normal Rosans. How does that sound?"

Sorrel nodded. "We're playing this all by ear, so your suggestion sounds as good as any. We'll see how it goes with this group, and readjust later. I've got a feeling that two or four hours of humans talking is too much at a shot, but we'll see."

Wandra had been gently tugging him out of the room while he talked. Two Rosans in an electric wagon whooshed by with a load of tunneling equipment. Wandra plopped onto the cool stone floor and Sorrel followed, awkwardly falling over her as she dragged him down. She laughed, beautifully, and he laughed as well. She shook her head. "I was getting so tired standing there in the lecture hall, I couldn't wait for a chance to sit down," Wandra said.

Sorrel nodded. "Yes, I've got the feeling all my blood went into my legs. I think we'll have to install a few chairs here and there in strategic locations around Khayyam. Either that, or do some genetic engineering on the Rosans so they need chairs, too—that way we can invent the chair for them and make a huge profit, selling cushions."

Wandra laughed again, a wonderful human sound. Rosans knew laughter, too, but it was a swift, chirping sound, the laughter of hummingbirds. There was no time for rich melodies here on Khayyam.

Wandra's laughter cut just a bit short. "Were you watching the engineers while you were speaking?"

Sorrel sighed. "Yes, I was."

"They worship you."

"I know."

The silence hung heavy in the still, dry air. Wandra spoke again. "I know you did something special for these people once, but frankly I'm amazed by how they remember you. That was hundreds of generations ago, wasn't it, whatever you did?"

Sorrel sighed. "Yeah, but the Rosan memory is long and fickle. "

Wandra just stared at him.

He exhaled slowly. "Especially, they remember their gods."

She nodded. "Brek Dar El Kind said something like that."

"Brek Dar El Kind?"

"One of the students."

"Um." Long pause. "Did he tell you of the Faith of Six Parents?" She shook her head. "Well, it's the main religion of Khayyam. In fact, it's the only religion here in the MoonBenders Cavernwork. The followers of the earlier religion were wiped out here in a war some years ago. Shortly after I finished my dissertation on Rosan culture, as it happens."

"Um. Coincidence?"

Sorrel clutched his head in his hands. "I'm afraid not. You see, I invented the Faith of Six Parents." He shrugged. "Oh, it wasn't a religion when I invented it, it was just an idea—but when my idea got mixed with real beings on a real planet with real problems, it became a religion." He took a deep breath.

Just then they heard someone—or something—skitter around the corner. The something made sharp clicking steps, much different from the Rosans. "Freeze," Sorrel ordered Wandra.

He turned toward the sound. Sure enough, a krat hunched there, eyeing them hungrily.

The man and the krat looked at each other for a long time, there in the tunnel. The krat's petals were more ragged than Rosan petals, and a vicious scar gouged the length of his left side. The small but tough creature approached.

An electric cart whirred down the passage toward them, and the krat vanished.

Sorrel noticed his hands were shaking, and his brow was damp despite the dustiness. "They really aren't very dangerous," he said, as much to himself as to Wandra. "Usually the krat don't bother adult Rosans. But the Rosans recently started another big extermination push on the krat, and hunger makes them bolder."

Wandra squeezed his arm. "Thanks," she said, before looking him in the eye with some amusement. "You were telling me about your dissertation. "

"Ah yes." Sorrel took a deep breath. "I guess I'll give you the whole spiel."

He exhaled slowly. "I'll start with the Rosan lifecycle. Rosans have two sexes, pretty much like humans, except they get along better." Wandra hit Sorrel in the arm, and he laughed. "Anyway, each pair of genetic parents produce several eggs. The eggs hatch in about a year, and the larvae take off into the deserts. These larval Rosans are tough beasts, tough enough to survive repeated exposure to Khayyam's sun. The larvae grow and fight for about two years before returning to the place of hatching. At that time they metamorphose into adults." Sorrel felt Wandra's breath upon his cheek, and enjoyed the warmth of having a woman near him again. It had been a long time. "The last act of metamorphosis is the bloodfeast, in which the larva consumes the bulk of the brainblood of its bloodparents. From the bloodparents the larva gets many memories, opinions, and attitudes—foremost are the memories associated with the parents', uh . . ." What was a human equivalent? Sorrel winced. "Their
purpose
, I suppose. Except the
purpose
is also transmitted in brainblood, and it takes generations to change the direction of the brainblood's purpose, even if one of the individuals in the bloodline is fanatically dedicated to a different purpose." Sorrel shrugged. "Anyway, the larva also feasts on a part of the brainblood of the brainparents and receives some of their memories as well—though the brainparent memories are stripped of emotional associations. You could think of the brainparent memories as being collections of highlighted
facts
, and the bloodparent memories as being both facts and
beliefs
." Sorrel chuckled. "Actually, there are theorists who think that all memories are passed, even though only a part of the bloodmemories are remembered. But it'd be hard to prove—no Rosan could live long enough to remember that many memories anyway. Especially since the individual Rosan has a photographic memory, as far as his own life is concerned. Just remembering one parent's whole life would be a lifetime affair."

Sorrel stood up, dragging Wandra with him as she had earlier dragged him. "Let's walk." Their direction led away from that of the krat's departure. "Since the larvae always return to their hatch-place for the bloodfeast, genetic parents tended to be the bloodparents as well. Thus there were four parents.

"But after the invention of the shovel, civilization developed inside the caverns, where Rosans could live both day and night. In this new environment the identity of genetic and bloodparents was no longer necessary; in fact, it was a severe hindrance to progress. Since the egg and larval stages last three years, the memories of the great scientists and philosophers missed a hundred generations of civilization between incarnations." Sorrel's voice turned bitter. "That's where my distant, objective eye came into play. I saw something better. You see, if they used a different larva—a larva that reached maturity just as a person died—the person's memories wouldn't have to wait for three years. No, that person's memories could be incarnated the next day." Sorrel shrugged. "The Rosans themselves never saw this possibility. I wouldn't be surprised if there's an instinct for having genetic parents as bloodparents. Not that an instinct was needed anymore—the correspondence of genetic parents with bloodparents was institutionalized in the Faith of Four Parents. The religious leaders, of course, vehemently opposed the six-parent concept."

"So there was a war."

Sorrel nodded. "War isn't common among Rosans—it takes too many generations to make a change that way. Assassination and brainblood-burning are more common. But when they have a war, it's a total war in the finest human tradition."
Like the kind we waged against the Lazarines
, he thought. "The Faith of Six won, of course; no one in the universe can beat the speed with which a six-parent Rosan culture can make advances in experimental sciences like weaponry, because no one else could conduct so many experiments so fast as a series of determined generations of Rosans."

"Which is why we brought the FTLcom here, to be done swiftly."

"Yes." Sorrel looked at his watch. "You know, if you hurry, you'll
still
be late for your part of today's lecture."

Wandra stared at his timepiece, turned and rushed down the tunnel. Sorrel laughed, watching.

Cal never learned their names.

Their faces and their names changed, but their minds stayed the same—as each tech on the FTLcom project died, the Bloodkeepers fed his brainblood to the next, best returning larva. There was one class for the dayspinners and one for the nightspinners. The minds were constant within those two groups.

Too constant. Day after day Cal would answer the same questions—sharp, insightful questions, but still the same questions. Oh, the Rosans always knew all the facts before they came to class: they read all the textbooks beforehand. With photographic memories it was a breeze. Yes, they knew the facts—but to
understand
and
manipulate
those facts was another matter, and facts without understanding simply wouldn't transmit through brainblood. The brainblood absorbed abstruse mathematics in tiny increments; to produce a clear imprint would require generations of effort.

Sorrel and the Bloodkeepers told him that soon their determined screening and selection of bloodlines would produce engineers who remembered FTL hyperspace mechanics with facility, for whom the brainblood's
purpose
was directed toward this kind of learning. But for now there was a slow, painful learning process.

So Cal would teach. Incredibly swiftly they would learn, and then the new faces would come the next day, having forgotten. So Cal would teach.

Until one nightspin he met Dor Laff To Lin. She was delicate and graceful, even for a Rosan. Her mouth quirked into a laughing smile at the slightest provocation. Better yet, she asked new questions.

New questions! Her brain- and blood-parents had passed their knowledge and their understanding in brainblood, and Dor Laff knew it all. She knew, perhaps, as much as Cal himself, and when she reached midnight age Cal no longer knew answers to her questions. He blustered and flushed at her; she laughed and worked with him. She taught the rest of the class to help him find the answers to her new questions, digging ever deeper into the vitals of the Universe.

Cal had never known a woman with whom he could laugh and work, nor had he ever been a member of a team, a leading member at that: though Dor Laff controlled the discussions, it was Cal's mind that was central; it was Cal's mind that was tapped for knowledge and insights. They pushed him beyond the seeming limits of his creativity, to see new truths, and then they took his truth and ran with it farther and faster, in many directions, than a human mind could go.

But Cal didn't have time to be disturbed by their superiority—for as one group ran off with a new idea, Dor Laff would bring him back to work another track, another direction, to send another group racing in another new direction. Never had he loved so deeply someone who had given him so much.

Dawn approached; the brightness in Dor Laffs eyes was fading, but Cal was too flushed with victory to notice. He half-sat, half-fell to the edge of the lecture platform. Waves of exhaustion caught up with him. "Dor Laff, you're a miracle," he told her in ecstasy.

She knelt beside him and touched his cheek. The gentle petals of her hand brushed across his forehead. "Will you remember me?" she asked.

He looked into her eyes. "Of course I will."