The Gentle Seduction (14 page)

She hugged him. "Thank you, thank you for letting me touch your immortality." She turned. "Good-bye."

He called to her, but she was gone for the moment. The fatigue of thirty hours of concentration took him; he slept.

When he woke, she was gone forever.

". . . and things are going remarkably smoothly, all in all," Sorrel was saying into his dictalog when Wandra's call came through.

"Sorrel, we've got a problem here," Wandra yelled above the background sound of an angry crowd. "Cal's lost his cool, with a vengeance. We'll be lucky if they don't lynch us."

"Stay calm," he urged on his way out the door. "Be with you in a flash."

The FTLcom cavern had changed a great deal since the last time Sorrel had seen it; corners here and there contained the beginnings of pieces of equipment that would've given Euclid headaches; some were shrouded to prevent glances into the gravwarps being generated. There were nearly 400 Rosans there now, all murmuring to one another. Cal stood before them, cursing and pleading in anguish. "Why don't you remember? Why are you asking me the same thing again? Why do you question me? Listen to me, please!" Several of the Rosans had left their inclines and gathered near the front platform.

A dozen Rosans saw Sorrel enter the room and hurried to him. "Man Everwood, what should we do?" they asked, with reverence in their eyes.

"Nothing," he replied grimly. "Don't let any Rosans touch him. I'm gonna have enough trouble with him as it is." He turned to Wandra. "How tough are you in a fistfight?" Sorrel asked in Anglic.

"Brown belt in modkido. How 'bout you?" She barked a short, tense laugh.

He shook his head. "I'm too old, I'm afraid. I'll distract him; you grab him. Wish we had more manpower, but if the Rosans tried to touch him, he'd really go wild."

"They'd only get hurt, anyway—too fragile," she commented as they moved in on the podium.

"Cal," Sorrel yelled above the noise, "A shuttle just arrived from New Terra! There's a message for you!"

Cal stopped cold. "What?"

Wandra rushed him. He flailed, and Sorrel ran up to assist Wandra. A few minutes' struggle left Cal tired and sobbing.

"Take him back to his cave?" Wandra asked.

Sorrel shook his head. "The ship. Let's surround him with as much humanness as we can. He's suffering classic culture shock."

They picked him up, started him moving out of the cavern. "Classic culture shock? I never heard of anybody frothing gibberish because of culture shock before."

"Well, almost classic culture shock," Sorrel grunted. "You've gotta admit, this culture has a lot of shock in it." He bit his lip, and together they dragged Cal's limp body back to the ship.

Sorrel had never been a practicing psychologist, at least not to the extent of hanging out a shingle and looking for lost psyches. But it seemed to be his main function on this trip; perhaps Balcyrak had known all along that this would happen.

The psychologist took a deep breath, but otherwise retained a professional calm. Apparently this episode had been triggered by the death of a Rosan woman. Sorrel cursed himself for thinking Cal's aloofness would protect him; the aloofness had made him all the more vulnerable, once someone broke through the shell.

At the moment Sorrel was sitting quietly next to Cal, who lay on an accelerator couch pouring forth his soul. Freud would have loved it. Sorrel did not. It had taken great effort even to get Dor Laffs name, and Cal still didn't acknowledge her as his source of pain. "Is that the only problem with the Rosans, Cal? Are you sure?"

Cal nodded. "I can't stand it. Every day I teach the same thing, again and again, and the faces are
different
." The last ended in a howl of horror. "Every day different, never the same person twice." He whimpered, "Please, let me have just one student twice."

Sorrel shook his head. "Don't they remember, Cal? Don't they ever, from one day to the next? Just one thing. Can you remember?"

"Well . . . just a couple of things. Not much. Always the same questions . . ."

Wandra knocked at the open door of the cabin; Sorrel waved her in. "How's he doin', Doc?" she asked, attempting to be light and cheery.

"Cal's as fine as ever, of course. I think we'll spend the rest of the afternoon here, though. Can you manage the courses by yourself?"

She nodded. "You bet, Doc. Stimpills and me, we've got what it takes."

"Yeah, I'll bet. Next Cal will have to take the whole show for two days, while you recuperate.'"

"Faith, Doc, faith. Catch ya later." She was gone before Sorrel could speak again.

He turned back to Cal. "You were telling me what else bothers you about the Rosans, besides the fact that they forget every day."

"I was?" Cal twisted his head to Sorrel. "I, uh, I guess there is something else. They don't remember too well, but . . ." Cal's shoulders shook as he sobbed. "They're, they're smarter than we are. I just don't believe how much smarter they are. So fast, so sharp. Every day I say the same things over again, but every day they learn it again in just a matter of minutes. " He rolled over, away from Sorrel, and mumbled into the couch, "God, what I'd give to be able to think as fast as they can."

"Would you give your life for it, Cal? They do."

"I know, I know, but . . ." He rolled back over, smiled through the tears. "My old quant prof, Durbrig, used to tell me my problem was that I wanted it all. I guess I still do."

"I guess so, too. I envy you that, Cal. I wish I still had enough hope to dare to want it all." Sorrel stood up. "Stay here until, oh, maybe 5100 hours, and come on back to the cavernwork. Think you'll be all right?"

"Yeah." He smiled, crossed his arms as Wandra would. "Sure thing, Doc."

The new nightspin Bloodbond was different from the earlier Bonds; this Sorrel could tell already, and he hadn't even met the being yet. But so far three other Rosans had gone in to see the Bond, leaving Sorrel to cool his heels for upwards of two minutes—a short but significant wait. Earlier, Sorrel had received immediate service, regardless of how important the other callers were and how precious their time was. It had always made Sorrel uncomfortable before, but now its absence left a trace of anxiety nibbling his mind.

As the third Rosan left, Kik Nee Mord Deth beckoned him. "What, Man, want you?" he asked in peremptory Rosan.

"Equipment," Sorrel replied as smoothly as he could manage. "FTLcom tech bloodmemories firm now. Prototype construction begins. Trouble develops acquiring these items." He held out a list to Kik Nee, who snatched it, skimmed it, and thrust it back to Sorrel.

"Precious items," he commented. "Needed elsewhere."

"Priority 1A on FTLcom," Sorrel replied almost haughtily. That internal haughtiness surprised Sorrel himself. He'd never imagined himself pushing for the prerogatives the first Bloodbond had granted him, but Kik Nee rubbed him the wrong way. "Impediment intentional?"

The Rosan exhaled sharply. "Much work waits," he almost pleaded. "Let it progress. You need not speed, you have time."

And that, Sorrel knew, told the whole story.
You have time
, the Bloodbond knew, and hated. Jealousy haunted the Rosans at last. Sorrel cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I've not treated you justly." Sorrel moved forward, took an incline. "But that equipment is needed. Without it the project halts. Though I can wait, engineers cannot. I waste not their lives." Sorrel remembered an old analogy, from the Rosan past. "There's an old bit of Rosan poetry—have you read Gesh Lok Tel Hor?"

The Rosan's lips drew back in disgust. "No time for ancient history."

Sorrel shook his head, blushed. "Of course not," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, again."

Kik Nee turned to the next waiting Rosan, who rushed into rapidfire discussion—again Sorrel was embarrassed at how much the Rosans had to slow down to talk to humans. But Sorrel wasn't done here yet. "Equipment?" he demanded in a loud, human voice, over the hummingbird sounds of the Rosans.

Kik Nee turned to him, head slumped ever so slightly. "Yours," he acquiesced.

Sorrel left with much food for thought.

Balcyrak stood with his back to Sorrel, watching the darkening sea, while the wind whipped his fur. Sorrel shivered, though the air was warm—on old Earth, the feeling in this evening air would have meant a storm coming.

Balcyrak turned as Sorrel approached. "You must see a sunrise while you are on Khayyam, Man Everwood. Do you know of them?"

Sorrel nodded. "I am, after all, the expert on the planet, right?"

Balcyrak chuckled. "Then tell me this, expert. From whence did the planet get its name?"

Sorrel tilted his head in thought. "Youve got me there. I know it was discovered by a Lazarine, but Khayyam doesn't sound like a Lazarine name."

"It is not. The leader of the Lazarine expedition that landed on Khayyam was an expert, if you will, on Man. Omar Khayyam was one of your own poets. The Lazarine explorer named the planet for the human author who wrote so eloquently of a species similar to the people of Khayyam." He paused, looking again to the sea.

"Yes, look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day

Woke—and a Thousand scattered in the Clay

And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose

Shall leave Another's gentle Petals, once blown, to lay."

Sorrel cleared his throat. "It does seem apropos, at that."

Balcyrak turned back to the human. "Yes. And now I have a warning for you." "Oh?"

"Watch out while you are on Khayyam, my friend-to-be. When you arrive, you will be honored, but it will not last. You will prove too alien to them, and a love/hate bond will form. It will prove cyclic. First they will love, then they will hate, then they will love again." The Lazarine's hand clenched and unclenched as he spoke. "Much as Man loves and hates Lazaran," he whispered to the wind.

Sorrel squinted at him. "I see." Sorrel moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Balcyrak, at the edge of the precipice. "Why is it so important to you that the FTL communicator be ready so soon? Granted, it'll prove valuable beyond price, but why the rush? Why do you need to send people hurtling halfway across known space to get it done so quickly?"

Now it seemed that Balcyrak shivered under his thick coat of hair. "I suppose you should know. I suppose it might help motivate you, as well." He paused. "There will be another war between our peoples, Man Everwood."

Sorrel nodded, though currently the peacefulness of Man's relationship with the Lazarines was sickeningly sweet, he knew there was an undercurrent of hatred, a slowly growing group of people who disliked the Lazarines as much as Sorrel himself did. "Who will win?"

"Does it matter? Someone will lose. Someone, Man Everwood, will lose everything. The next war will be a war of genocide. Our wisest consuls have studied carefully, and they know not who will be destroyed, but all agree that one or the other of our species is doomed."

Sorrel paled; he hadn't realized it would go that far.

"We need better communications, Man Everwood. The time it takes for even the starships to carry messages is too great for your people. Given better communications, and hence swifter understanding, we believe we can avert the war"

Sharp cynicism left a sour taste in Sorrel's mouth. "Communications will avert a war, huh? Just like that." He snapped his fingers. He'd heard that sort of thing before, but only from human dreamers who thought that words had substance. He hadn't expected it from a calm, realistic Lazarine.

"I don't blame you for doubting. Certainly, talk has rarely helped your species avert internal warfare. But this is considerably different." For the first time, the Lazarine's eyes refused to meet Sorrel's. "There is a . . . molding of directions involved. It is difficult to explain." Balcyrak's eyes regained their penetrating intensity. "But I am telling you the truth; communication is the answer." Now his amusement returned as well. "This also is something you'll understand better after working with the people of Khayyam."

Sorrel pursed his lips; Balcyrak's sincerity made a believer of him. "I confess, the urgency of the project seems somewhat greater now than it did a few minutes ago"

"I thought it might. Yes." A particularly strong gust of wind pushed them back from the cliff just as the sun sank beyond the horizon. They turned back to the path. "And remember to see a sunrise while you are there, Man Everwood. It is special indeed."

Sorrel squeezed through the narrow passage into the fresh-cut cavenet. "Whew!" he exclaimed, "what a small entrance. I didn't even see it at first. You'll have to enlarge it."

The tunneling chief looked upset. "Of course, Man Everwood. The entranceway is always widened as the last step, so our noise and dust disturb the rest of the cavernwork as little as possible."

"Oh. I understand." Sorrel toured the new FTLcom lab facilities with some pleasure. "Well, it all looks pretty good to me, though I don't know anything about the arrangements you need for hyperspace experiments. I suppose we should have Cal and Wandra take a look."

They squeezed back out of the cavenet. Sorrel looked again at the narrow entrance. "Wait a minute. What if we don't open it up now?" He pondered for a moment.

The tunneling chief looked upset again. "Why wouldn't you open it?"

"Just in case of emergencies, that's all." He nodded his head. "Chief, these labs are ours to do with as we please, right?"

"Of course."

An evil gleam entered Sorrel's eyes. "Cal and Wandra will probably shoot me for this—the lecture hall is horribly overcrowded, and they need this space now— but I think we'll leave it as is."

The chief s petals fluttered rebelliously.

"Don't widen the entrance," Sorrel said, to make his orders explicit. "We'll open it later. When we want it, I'll have one of your bloodchildren do it for us."

The chief looked like he'd collapse with sorrow. Still he managed to stutter, "Yes, Man Everwood."

Sorrel touched his forearm. "And thanks. You've done a wonderful job. We'll remember you forever."