“Good afternoon, Commander Warshow,” a dry voice said suddenly.
Warshow glanced around, surprised and annoyed. The man who stood behind him was tall, thin, with hard, knobby cheekbones protruding grotesquely from parchmentlike chalk-white skin. Warshow recognized the genetic pattern, and the man. He was Domnik Kross, a trader from the quondam Terran colony of Rigel IX.
“Hello, Kross,” Warshow said sullenly, and halted to let the other catch up.
“What brings you to the city, commander? I thought you were getting ready to pack up and flit away.”
“We’re—postponing four days,” Warshow said.
“Oh? Got any leads worth telling about? Not that I care to—”
“Skip it, Kross.” Warshow’s voice was weary. “We’ve finished our trading for the season. You’ve got a clear field. Now leave me alone, yes?”
He started to walk faster, but the Rigelian, smiling bleakly, kept in step with him.
“You sound disturbed, commander.”
Warshow glanced impatiently at the other, wishing he could unburden himself of the Rigelian’s company. “I’m on a mission of top security value, Kross. Are you going to insist on accompanying me?”
Thin lips parted slyly in a cold grin. “Not at all, Commander Warshow. I simply thought I’d be civil and walk with you a way, just to swap the news. After all, if you’re leaving in four days we’re not really rivals any more, and—”
“Exactly,” Warshow said.
“What’s this about one of your crewmen living with a native?” Kross asked suddenly.
Warshow spun on his heel and glared up tensely. “Nothing,” he grated. “You hear that? There’s nothing to it!”
Kross chuckled, and Warshow saw that he had decidedly lost a point in the deadly cold rivalry between Terran and Rigelian, between man and son of man. Genetic drift accounted for the Domnik Krosses—a little bit of chromosome looping on a colonized planet, a faint tincture of inbreeding over ten generations, and a new subspecies had appeared: an alien subspecies that bore little love for its progenitors.
They reached a complex fork in the street, and the commander impulsively turned to the left. Gratifyingly, he noticed that Kross was not following him.
“See you next year!” the Rigelian said.
Warshow responded with a noncommittal grunt and kept moving down the dirty street, happy to be rid of Kross so soon. The Rigelians, he thought, were nasty customers. They were forever jealous of the mother world and its people, forever anxious to outrace an Earthman to a profitable deal on a world such as Kollidor.
Because of Kross, Warshow reflected, I’m going where I’m going now. Pressure from the Rigelians forced Earthmen to keep up appearances throughout the galaxy. The Earthman’s Burden, Terrans termed it unofficially. To leave a deserter behind on Kollidor would endanger Earth’s prestige in the eyes of the entire universe—and the shrewd Rigelians would make sure the entire universe knew.
Warshow felt hemmed in. As he approached the flat where Falk said he was living, he felt cascades of perspiration tumbling stickily down his back.
“Yes, please?”
Warshow now stood at the door, a little appalled by the sight and the smell. A Kollidorian female faced him squarely.
Good God, he thought. She’s sure no beauty.
“I’m…Commander Warshow,” he said. “Of the Magyar. Matt’s ship. May I come in?”
The sphincterlike mouth rippled into what Warshow supposed was a gracious smile. “Of course. I have hoped you would come. Matt has spoken so much of you.”
She backed away from the door, and Warshow stepped inside. The pungent rankness of concentrated Kollidorian odor assaulted his nostrils. It was an unpainted two-room flat; beyond the room they were in, Warshow saw another, slightly larger and sloppier, with kitchen facilities. Unwashed dishes lay heaped in the sink. To his surprise, he noticed an unmade bed in the far room…and another in the front one. Single beds. He frowned and turned to the girl.
She was nearly as tall as he was, and much broader. Her brown skin was drab and thick, looking more like hide than skin; her face was wide and plain, with two flat, unsparkling eyes, a grotesque bubble of a nose, and a many-lipped compound mouth. The girl wore a shapeless black frock that hung to her thick ankles. For all Warshow knew, she might be the pinnacle of Kollidorian beauty—but her charms scarcely seemed likely to arouse much desire in a normal Earthman.
“You’re Thetona, is that right?”
“Yes, Commander Warshow.” Voice dull and toneless, he noted.
“May I sit down?” he asked.
He was fencing tentatively, hemming around the situation without cutting towards it. He made a great business of taking a seat and crossing his legs fastidiously; the girl stared, cowlike, but remained standing.
An awkward silence followed; then the girl said, “You want Matt to go home with you, don’t you?”
Warshow reddened and tightened his jaws angrily. “Yes. Our ship’s leaving in four days. I came to get him.”
“He isn’t here,” she said.
“I know. He’s back at the base. He’ll be home soon.”
“You haven’t done anything to him?” she asked, suddenly apprehensive.
He shook his head. “He’s all right.” After a moment Warshow glanced sharply at her and said, “He loves you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes.” But the answer seemed hesitant.
“And you love him?”
“Oh, yes,” Thetona said warmly. “Certainly.”
“I see.” Warshow wet his lips. This was going to be difficult. “Suppose you tell me how you came to fall in love? I’m curious.”
She smiled—at least, he assumed it was a smile. “I met him about two days after you Earthmen came for your visit. I was walking in the streets, and I saw him. He was sitting on the edge of the street, crying.”
“What?”
Her flat eyes seemed to go misty. “Sitting there sobbing to himself. It was the first time I ever saw an Earthman like that—crying, I mean. I felt terribly sorry for him. I went over to talk to him. He was like a little lost boy.”
Warshow looked up, astonished, and stared at the alien girl’s placid face with total disbelief. In ten years of dealing with the Kollidorians, he had never gone too close to them; he had left personal contact mainly to others. But—
Dammit, the girl’s almost human! Almost—
“Was he sick?” Warshow asked, his voice hoarse. “Why was he crying?”
“He was lonely,” Thetona said serenely. “He was afraid. He was afraid of me, of you, of everyone. So I talked to him, there by the edge of the street, for many minutes. And then he asked to come home with me. I lived by myself, here. He came with me. And—he has been here since three days after that.”
“And he plans to stay here permanently?” Warshow asked.
The wide head waggled affirmatively. “We are very fond of each other. He is lonely; he needs someone to—”
“That’ll be enough,” Falk’s voice said suddenly.
Warshow whirled. Falk was standing in the doorway, his face bleak and grim. The scar on his face seemed to be inflamed, though Warshow was sure that was impossible.
“What are you doing here?” Falk asked.
“I came to visit Thetona,” Warshow said mildly. “I didn’t expect to have you return so soon.”
“I know you didn’t. I walked out when Cullinan started poking around me. Suppose you get out.”
“You’re talking to a superior officer,” Warshow reminded him. “If I—”
“I resigned ten minutes ago,” Falk snapped. “You’re no superior of mine! Get out!”
Warshow stiffened. He looked appealingly at the alien girl, who put her thick six-fingered hand on Falk’s shoulder and stroked his arm. Falk wriggled away.
“Don’t,” he said. “Well—are you leaving? Thetona and I want to be alone.”
“Please go, Commander Warshow,” the girl said softly. “Don??
?t get him excited.”
“Excited? Who’s excited?” Falk roared. “I—”
Warshow sat impassively, evaluating and analyzing, ignoring for the moment what was happening.
Falk would have to be brought back to the ship for treatment. There was no alternative, Warshow saw. This strange relationship with the Kollidorian would have to be broken.
He stood up and raised one hand for silence. “Mr. Falk, let me speak.”
“Go ahead. Speak quick, because I’m going to pitch you out of here in two minutes.”
“I won’t need two minutes,” Warshow said. “I simply want to inform you that you’re under arrest and that you’re hereby directed to report back to the base at once, in my custody. If you refuse to come it will be necessary—”
The sentence went unfinished. Falk’s eyes flared angrily, and he crossed the little room in three quick bounds. Towering over the much smaller Warshow, he grabbed the commander by the shoulders and shook him violently. “Get out!” he shrieked.
Warshow smiled apologetically, took one step backward, and slid his stunner from its place in his tunic. He gave Falk a quick, heavy jolt, and as the big man sagged towards the floor, Warshow grabbed him and eased him into a chair.
Thetona was crying. Great gobbets of amber liquid oozed from her eyes and trickled heartbreakingly down her coarse cheeks.
“Sorry,” Warshow said. “It had to be done.”
It had to be done.
It had to be done.
It had to be done.
Warshow paced the cabin, his weak eyes darting nervously from the bright row of rivets across the ceiling to the quiet grey walls to the sleeping form of Matt Falk, and finally to the waiting, glowering visage of Psych Officer Cullinan.
“Do you want to wake him?” Cullinan asked.
“No. Not yet.” Warshow kept prowling restlessly, trying to square his actions within himself. A few more minutes passed. Finally Cullinan stepped out from behind the cot on which Falk lay, and took Warshow’s arm.
“Leon, tell me what’s eating you.”
“Don’t shrink my skull,” Warshow burst out. Then, sorry, he shook his head. “I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t.”
“It’s two hours since you brought him aboard the ship,” Cullinan said. “Don’t you think we ought to do something?”
“What can we do?” Warshow demanded. “Throw him back to that alien girl? Kill him? Maybe that’s the best solution—let’s stuff him in the converters and blast off.”
Falk stirred. “Ray him again,” Warshow said hollowly. “The stunning’s wearing off.”
Cullinan used his stunner, and Falk subsided. “We can’t keep him asleep forever,” the psychman said.
“No—we can’t.” Warshow knew time was growing short; in three days the revised departure date would arrive, and he didn’t dare risk another postponement.
But if they left Falk behind, and if word got around that a crazy Earthman was loose on Kollidor, or that Earthmen went crazy at all—
And there was no answer to that.
“Therapy,” Cullinan said quietly.
“There’s no time for an analysis,” Warshow pointed out immediately. “Three days—that’s all.”
“I didn’t mean a full-scale job. But if we nail him with an amytal-derivative inhibitor drug, filter out his hostility to talking to us, and run him back along his memories, we might hit something that’ll help us.”
Warshow shuddered. “Mind dredging, eh?”
“Call it that,” the psychman said. “But let’s dredge whatever it is that’s tipped his rocker, or it’ll wreck us all. You, me—and that girl.”
“You think we can find it?”
“We can try. No Earthman in his right mind would form a sexual relationship of this kind—or any sort of emotional bond with an alien creature. If we hit the thing that catapulted him into it, maybe we can break this obviously neurotic fixation and make him go willingly. Unless you’re willing to leave him behind. I absolutely forbid dragging him away as he is.”
“Of course not,” Warshow agreed. He mopped away sweat and glanced over at Falk, who still dreamed away under the effects of the stunbeam. “It’s worth a try. If you think you can break it, go ahead. I deliver him into thy hands.”
The psychman smiled with surprising warmth. “It’s the only way. Let’s dig up what happened to him and show it to him. That should crack the shell.”
“I hope so,” Warshow said. “It’s in your hands. Wake him up and get him talking. You know what to do.”
A murky cloud of drug-laden air hung in the cabin as Cullinan concluded his preliminaries. Falk stirred and began to grope towards consciousness. Cullinan handed Warshow an ultrasonic injector filled with a clear, glittering liquid.
Just as Falk seemed to be ready to open his eyes, Cullinan leaned over him and began to talk, quietly, soothingly. Falk’s troubled frown vanished, and he subsided.
“Give him the drug,” Cullinan whispered. Warshow touched the injector hesitantly to Falk’s tanned forearm. The ultrasonic hummed briefly, blurred into the skin. Warshow administered three cc. and retracted.
Falk moaned gently.
“It’ll take a few minutes,” Cullinan said.
The wall clock circled slowly. After a while, Falk’s sleep-heavy eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes and glanced up without apparent recognition of his surroundings.
“Hello, Matt. We’re here to talk to you,” Cullinan said. “Or rather, we want you to talk to us.”
“Yes,” Falk said.
“Let’s begin with your mother, shall we? Tell us what you remember about your mother. Go back, now.”
“My—mother?” The question seemed to puzzle Falk, and he remained silent for nearly a minute. Then he moistened his lips. “What do you want to know about her?”
“Tell us everything,” Cullinan urged.
There was silence. Warshow found himself holding his breath.
Finally, Falk began to speak.
Warm. Cuddly. Hold me. Mamama.
I’m all alone. It’s night, and I’m crying. There are pins in my leg where I slept on it, and the night air smells cold. I’m three years old, and I’m all alone.
Hold me, mama?
I hear mama coming up the stairs. We have an old house with stairs, near the spaceport where the big ships go woosh! There’s the soft smell of mama holding me now. Mama’s big and pink and soft. Daddy is pink too but he doesn’t smell warm. Uncle is the same way.
Ah, ah, baby, she’s saying. She’s in the room now, and holding me tight. It’s good. I’m getting very drowsy. In a minute or two I’ll be asleep. I like my mama very much.
(“Is that your earliest recollection of your mother?” Cullinan asked.)
(“No. I guess there’s an earlier one.”)
Dark here. Dark and very warm, and wet, and nice. I’m not moving. I’m all alone here, and I don’t know where I am. It’s like floating in an ocean. A big ocean. The whole world’s an ocean.
It’s nice here, real nice. I’m not crying.
Now there’s blue needles in the black around me. Colors…all kinds. Red and green and lemon-yellow, and I’m moving! There’s pain and pushing, and—God!—it’s getting cold. I’m choking! I’m hanging on, but I’m going to drown in the air out there! I’m—
(“That’ll be enough,” Cullinan said hastily. To Warshow he explained, “Birth trauma. Nasty. No need to put him through it all over again.” Warshow shivered a little and blotted his forehead.)
(“Should I go on?” Falk asked.)
(“Yes. Go on.”)
I’m four, and it’s raining plunk-a plunk outside. It looks like the whole world’s turned grey. Mama and daddy are away, and I’m alone again. Uncle is downstairs. I don’t know uncle really, but he seems to be here all the time. Mama and daddy are away a lot. Being alone is like a cold rainstorm. It rains a lot here.
I’m in my bed, thinking about mama. I want mama. Mama took the jet p
lane somewhere. When I’m big, I want to take jet planes somewhere too—someplace warm and bright where it doesn’t rain.
Downstairs the phone rings, jingle-jingle. Inside my head I can see the screen starting to get bright and full of colors, and I try to picture mama’s face in the middle of the screen. But I can’t. I hear uncle’s voice talking, low and mumbly. I decide I don’t like uncle, and I start to cry.
Uncle’s here, and he’s telling me I’m too big to cry. That I shouldn’t cry any more. I tell him I want mama.
Uncle makes a nasty-mouth, and I cry louder.
Hush, he tells me. Quiet, Matt. There, there, Matt boy.
He straightens my blankets, but I scrunch my legs up under me and mess them up again because I know it’ll annoy him. I like to annoy him because he isn’t mama or daddy. But this time he doesn’t seem to get annoyed. He just tidies them up again, and he pats my forehead. There’s sweat on his hands, and he gets it on me.
I want mama, I tell him.
He looks down at me for a long time. Then he tells me, mama’s not coming back.
Not ever, I ask?
No, he says. Not ever.
I don’t believe him, but I don’t start crying, because I don’t want him to know he can scare me. How about daddy, I say. Get him for me.
Daddy’s not going to come back either, he tells me.
I don’t believe you, I say. I don’t like you, uncle. I hate you.
He shakes his head and coughs. You’d better learn to like me, he says. You don’t have anybody else any more.
I don’t understand him, but I don’t like what he’s saying. I kick the blankets off the bed, and he picks them up. I kick them off again, and he hits me.
Then he bends over quick and kisses me, but he doesn’t smell right and I start to cry. Rain comes. I want mama, I yell, but mama never comes. Never at all.
(Falk fell silent for a moment and closed his eyes. “Was she dead?” Cullinan prodded.)
(“She was dead,” Falk said. “She and dad were killed in a fluke jetliner accident, coming back from a holiday in Bangkok. I was four, then. My uncle raised me. We didn’t get along, much, and when I was fourteen he put me in the Academy. I stayed there four years, took two years of graduate technique, then joined Terran Imports. Two-year hitch on Denufar, then transferred to Commander Warshow’s ship Magyar where—where—”)