Chapter 41

 

Jared

 

 

The next morning the swelling had gone down to the point his leg looked nearly normal, if normal included the continued seeping of purple goo. Jared removed the pot of ointment from his eager nursemaids and took charge of the application himself, and Al, when Jared appealed to him, dug out the cane he had used two years ago when he tore the ligaments in his right leg. With that and reasonable luck, Jared could at least get around the house and the porch by himself.

He checked in at the Institute to find Weston and Ott starting work on the second arch. Patterson was late getting in; Ott thought he had probably overslept, since he had slept so poorly the night before on the conference room couch, thinly padded as it was. She assured Jared that she would let him know if they found anything of special interest, and Jared settled down with his screen to call Tim Andes at the hospital and see if he had had any luck locating the tissue samples.

The clone lab, according to Tim Andes, said that unless someone had taken possession of the samples, they ought to be still frozen on file, but the person who could locate them was on vacation this week, wouldn't be back until Monday morning. He was trying to find out just who would have the legal authority to take the samples, and he would get back to Dr. Ramirez on that. Jared wondered if Maud or Carter or Dr. Maarchesin might have gotten ahead of him; he would not be surprised to find the samples long gone.

But it was worth a try.

Today he thought he might spend some of his unwanted leisure looking for Carter. It was a shame to have all this time and be so restricted. He could think of lots of things he could do with free time if he were able to move around. But he had intended to pursue these issues, and this was an excellent time to get it done, not having anything else to distract him.

Sofi appeared with another handful of printouts, which she and Cara took inside to spread over the breakfast bar and discuss at leisure, leaving Issio to guard the invalid on the porch. Issio settled down on the step to go over the material Jared had found the day before, and Jared entered Carter's address and sat and looked at it. Carter says hello, the strange man had said. Carter and Maud seemed willing to display their connection with this stranger. Were they taunting him? But Maud had not seemed to be teasing the other night; she had come, well, very much as Trudy might have, an old friend, a former lover, having heard news of him, checking on his welfare.

"Dear Carter," he wrote. "Hello." And he signed his name and sent it before he could think about it.

"Perhaps," said Issio from the step, "one or more of us should go and speak with this Dr. Maarchesin. We do not need to tell her why we are interested in her; also we do not need to tell her we know what she is. We are inquiring about the death certificate she signed, that is all. You are the executor of the estate."

"If she worked with Maud and Carter to arrange all of this," said Jared, "you can bet they've warned her already."

"Even so," said Issio, "it might be worth the effort. If she lies, that would be informative also. When she lies," he amended, and looked up as Ann's car roared up the street and parked by the vacant area between his house and the Hardesty place. Ann got out, waving at Mutai and Wundra, who were starting the mower and turning on the weeder. Today Cara's friend was wearing shorts with a knit top Jared estimated as at least two sizes too small, earrings to her shoulders, and sandals with heels that could punch holes in the pavement.

"She is going into the woods?" said Issio in a tone of bewilderment. "Dressed in this way?"

"She's going somewhere," said Jared. "I don't know about the woods."

But the woods was the objective, she assured Jared and Issio as she paused by the porch; she was only stopping to see the D'ubian It before she went, if Mimi and Clyde didn't mind. Clyde was busy with the flowering bushes in the back, but Mimi, passing time while the bread rose by playing gin rummy with Al, was quite willing to take her down to their basement.

Al, looking bemused, stayed at the table enjoying the view as Ann followed Mimi, her high heels aerating the lawn as she went.

"Is this style of dress attractive to Earthian males?" inquired Issio.

"If you have a Y chromosome and you aren't dead," said Jared, "you're going to notice her. After that, it's a matter of individual taste; mine runs to a more subtle style."

"She looks like trouble," said Al. "Pretty trouble. But trouble. Too bad; she's a smart girl; she could do better."

She reappeared in something under fifteen minutes, mopping at her arms with a disposable towel. "That thing spits!" she said. "Right through the mesh on top! It doesn't curse as much as Dr. Lindstrom, but it's even more disgusting!" She frowned down at a red spot on her right arm, just above the wrist; it looked as if it were swelling, and Jared offered the pot of ointment. "Nasty thing," she said, dipping a finger into the pearlescent cream. "Do I just rub this on?"

"Did you have a scratch or something like that?" Jared asked her. "Where the skin is broken?"

"I don't think so," she said. "Lucky it didn't get my leg." She displayed the long shallow scratch on the outer calf of her right leg. "Some bush with thorns," she said, "yesterday." There were also a couple of scratches high on her thigh, Jared noticed, as if she had been walking through a waist-high thicket, or possibly sat down on the wrong log, or lay in a grassy meadow that turned out to be not entirely grass.

"Ann, is that you?" called Cara from inside. "Will you come and tell us what you think of this dress for Sofi?"

"Oh, sure," said Ann, returning the D'ubian pot. She vanished inside with a jangle of earrings and a drum of heels, and Jared shook his head and returned his attention to the screen.

 

Gina and Terry, Lillian and Phyllis called from Linden's World late that afternoon; they called Cara, considering her to be centrally located and likely to be at home, and she took the screen out on the porch where Sofi and Issio were discussing Wark's Ferry with Jared, and she alerted the Monopoly players and used Jared's phone to call the Bahtan girls.

The travelers had arrived safely with all their luggage intact around noon, they said, and had called as soon as they had gotten more or less settled in the McIntosh farm house. It was evening there. Willis was already in conference with the overseers and supervisors; Gina and Terry had showed Phyllis and Lillian through the house; they missed Haivran terribly. The funeral was set for the middle of next week, and they hoped to catch the ship home on the following Saturday.

Terry said that the ship was extremely interesting and it was too bad the crew was all so nervous and wouldn't let a person look around like he wanted. Phyllis said that it was one of those moments she wished she was not so drug-resistant; she really could use something for her headache, which she believed had begun during the first three hours of their trip with Terry.

The news of the D'ubian It caused a great deal of excitement, especially from Terry, who had counted on being present for the capture. He was all for calling the D'ubians immediately, but Lillian reminded him that they were probably still asleep, and he reluctantly agreed to wait a couple more hours.

Ann arrived just before the call ended, in time to say hello and chat briefly with Gina. She did not look her best; Jared took note of the missing earring and the battered high heel, not to mention the tangle of her hair, with several leaves caught in the back where she couldn't see them. There was a red mark on her neck. He was familiar with such marks, having left a few of his own. Looking up he saw Cara had noticed, too.

The connection to Linden's World was broken, and Cara grabbed her friend's elbow and dragged her inside, saying they should have coffee; Jared reached for the cane and Cara shook her head quickly and firmly. Ann would probably be more inclined to confide in privacy, he agreed, so he stayed where he was.

"It's not exactly like that," protested Ann, inside. "I mean, I know his first name!"

Jared decided this was an excellent time to check in with his team at the Institute; he scrolled for Weston's number and found him, predictably, in the conference room making adjustments on his projector. Ott and Patterson were still there, and they felt they had put in a good day's work, and they were glad to hear Jared would be back Monday. They all seemed to be in good spirits, looking forward to the weekend. Ott said her family was going hiking; Weston said he was going to redo the Reiter calculations; Patterson said he was going to watch vids with his nephews.

Ann came out of the house barefoot, carrying her heels, with her hair combed, and her surviving earring removed. "See you all tomorrow!" she called in general, and tripped down the street to her car, singing, cheerfully off-key.

"He lives, I guess, in that housing development just beyond the woods," said Cara, sitting down on the step beside Sofi and Issio. "She met him the other day; she went all the way through the woods west and south, and she came out on the street there and he was jogging. She says he's really cute. He's a programmer for a consulting firm; I don't know what they consult about. And she knows his first name; it's Charles."

"And he's cute," said Mimi, shuffling cards.

"That's our Ann," said Cara, shaking her head.

 

By Saturday the purple ooze had ceased and it was possible to put weight on his leg; Jared happily gave the cane back to Al. His leg ached after use, but that was nothing, and by Sunday he could walk almost normally again. With Issio for a second opinion – and to reassure Cara that someone was available to help if he needed it – he went down the stairs to Clyde's basement to visit the It that had caused him so much trouble.

Neither Issio nor Jared had done much with their basements; they had always intended to and just never quite found the time. Both basements were mostly foamstone floors and walls decorated with pipes and chutes. Issio was ahead of his neighbor; he had put up the partition that made a simple utility room. Jared had installed his laundry appliance under the small window looking out on the back yard under the porch, and stacked the assorted suitcases in the corner, with odd chairs and the old bike with one tire flat, and other bits of junk that could not be thrown out quite yet. He tried to keep the stack neat, anyway.

Clyde and Mimi, on the other hand, had put up paneling and laid a floor, D'ubian ceramic tiles in rich colors. They had their laundry appliance, a small one like Jared's, on the north wall with an old table holding flower pots and gardening tools, and a set of shelves with more gardening things neatly arranged. On the south side they had Mimi's preserves in jars, and containers of vacuum-sealed fruits and vegetables, and spare jars and containers. Clyde had evidently planned to put his safe in the east wall, and that end of the basement was partitioned off, a thick wall heavily insulated and reinforced, with a metal door standing open. From the space beyond, Jared could hear snarling and spitting and muttered words, in D'ubian, he thought.

"Do the D'ubians come down to see their It?" he asked Clyde, and Clyde shook his head.

"They sent over the twigs, and they sliced up some sort of vegetable, if it got tired of worms, they told me," he said. "It smelled pretty bad, and the It wouldn't touch it, so Mimi and I threw it in the chute, but don't tell them; it would hurt their feelings."

Inside the room Clyde had intended for his safe, the aquarium, a good-sized one, rested on a table which had been used as a work area; there were splashes of dried paint and assorted scrapes and burns on the unpainted top. Issio had improvised a cover out of metal mesh, not unlike the screening around Jared's back porch; it was held in place by heavy wire ties, and weighted down with a silver ax on each end. Ann's necklace was hung over the middle of the aquarium, wound around a little door arrangement big enough to drop food inside, smaller than the It with it's multiple legs and its wings.

The It could still attack whoever opened the little door; it could get its head through the opening, anyway, if it felt inspired to bite the hand that was feeding it. The fly displayed no reluctance to do this, figuratively, at least. The fly, of course, did not have the D'ubian It's fine set of fangs.

The It was sitting on what looked like a small tree branch in the bottom of the aquarium, back feet clutching a protruding twig, front claws digging into a second twig for balance, the middle legs and the membranous wings folded. There was a scattering of dried leaves on the bottom of the aquarium, and a small dish of water, and two little boxes of dirt, one of which was heaving and shifting; getting closer, Jared saw that it was filled with worms, and the overflow squirmed across the glass floor and poked blindly at the aquarium sides.

The It regarded its visitors coldly, and turned its head away, looking at the crawling food supply below it with the air of a shopper in a produce department inspecting a display of melons.

"I understand you speak Trade," said Jared, coming to a halt a prudent distance from the aquarium. The It turned toward him, looked him up and down, uttered something dire in D'ubian and spit. Orange foam hit the glass wall and dripped down to the dried leaves at the bottom.

"I assume that is poison," said Issio.

Mutant mongrel, said the D'ubian It in Trade, casting him a scornful look, and turned away to study the worms again.

"Perhaps," said Jared, "we should introduce ourselves: what do you think, Issio?"

"I think we should use a beam pistol," said Issio, "at high power."

Bastards, said the It. Spotting a particularly toothsome specimen, it reached out one of its folded middle legs and seized a worm fumbling around the edge of the dirt. It lifted the worm and turned it back and forth, inspecting it; orange foam dripped out of the corner of its mouth.

"This is Issio f'Alzen," said Jared, "and I am Jared Ramirez. How do you prefer to be addressed?"

Your Imperial Majesty will do, said the It, and employing the second middle leg, it stretched the body of the worm out in front of it, observing the elasticity.

"A humorist," said Issio darkly.

Useless fucking scum, said the It, and bit a large chunk out of the middle of the worm. Holding one end in each paw, or hand, or foot, it chewed with relish, mouth open, orange foam dripping. The dried leaves shriveled and blackened where the foam landed.

"Delightful," said Jared, and Issio muttered something in Zamuaon, just below hearing level. The It turned its reptilian head toward him, showed it's fangs in an unpleasant smirk, and popped one end of the worm into its mouth. It resumed the open-mouthed chewing; Jared could clearly hear slurping and smacking noises.

"I have changed my mind," said Issio. "A beam pistol will work too swiftly. I suggest we gut it with a hunting knife and leave it to bleed on the bottom of the aquarium."

The It, still smirking, thrust the remaining worm end into its mouth.

"Does it have blood?" Jared inquired.

"Blood," said Issio, "or venom. Maybe we should discover which. This may be of value in future studies of these beings. We could begin by ripping its arm off."

Your mother fucked Bahtans, said the It, bits of half-chewed worm ejected with the plosive sounds.

"Oh, that's disgusting," said Mimi, looking through the open doorway as she balanced a full basket of laundry on her hip, and Jared and Issio, on a single thought, moved between the It and Mimi and herded her firmly away from the door, closing it behind them.

"Although you're right," Jared told her. "Just like Ann said, it's even more disgusting than the fly."

"And I would not have thought that possible," said Issio, his tail switching.

 

On Monday Jared went back to the Institute, where Weston was feeding new and improved figures into his projector and Ott was going over the lower left leg of the second arch with the Zeilmars and attached recorder, and Patterson was adjusting images on the screen.

Jared shrugged off inquiries about his accident; the swelling having gone down, he was back in his jeans with the bite marks hidden, so he did not have to display or explain the purple scabs that had formed. He couldn't hide the limp, which was enough to justify his time off but fortunately not enough to get any latent nursing instincts activated. He had had enough nursing to last him several years, he thought.

After lunch he called the hospital, but Andes was out, and he had not left a message. He called instead mid-afternoon, interrupting Jared as he crawled under the first arch to recheck a glyph that seemed to repeat on the second arch. The person in charge of the clone lab storage files was still on vacation, but Andes said he was trying to track down those particular samples himself and would get back to Jared.

Issio was talking about taking a trip to Wark's Ferry over the weekend; his theory was that if he and Jared, with Sofi and Cara, all approached Dr. Maarchesin together, they might learn something from her general attitude. What one couldn't read from her words, another might read from her mind. And it was certainly something to consider. They could take the supertrain down, make a weekend of it, and perhaps find out something useful.

.The next day Tim Andes called to report that he had been unable to locate the samples himself, but he thought they might have been misfiled and he had a clerk looking through the records from last year.

By Wednesday Jared wasn't limping any more. He conferred with the Drs. Wood in the afternoon, dispatching preliminary images from the second arch; they had called Cara earlier, Dr. Louise said, and heard about his accident with the D'ubian thing, and she certainly hoped they had gotten rid of it; it wasn't a pet or anything, was it? Jared assured her they had it all under control, which was at least partly true.

At home that evening, Sofi reminded the neighborhood that this was the day of Eugene McIntosh's funeral on Linden's world, possibly, Jared thought, why everyone seemed to be feeling a little down. He had thought it was his own fatigue and the residue of the It poison, but Cara seemed subdued and so did Sofi and Issio; even the Monopoly players seemed less enthusiastic, and the Bahtan girls actually allowed one of their males to escape with only perfunctory pursuit. Clena and Evvie sat on the second male, a fine specimen with orange flowered shorts and polished horns, to make sure he didn't get further than the front yard.

Anyway, Phyllis and Lillian and Gina and Terry would be catching the flight on Saturday, heading home. The Bahtan girls had been keeping up with the yard work at the Hardesty house, and Sofi and Cara and Mimi went over to the house to make sure the cleaners were working. Durakal and Duroh went with them to check out Terry's room, and then joined the rest of the D'ubians in a small concert on the Hardesty porch, perhaps in honor of McIntosh's final rites, perhaps in honor of their missing band member. Even they seemed somber tonight.

"We have no progeny," said Dural. "We are misborn. We try many times. We lose; we feel great sadness. We do not try again. We have Terry."

"We share him with you others," said Durata, peeking bright-eyed out of her brown hood.

The D'ubians went on to their downtown studio, taking part of the bush on the corner along with their car, and the summer night grew quiet as the neighborhood settled to sleep Jared found himself lying awake looking at the ceiling for some time. Something was odd, something was off center, something was, perhaps, vaguely threatening; he couldn't identify it, but it was there. Cara, too, seemed restless, but he thought she was dozing, at least, and after awhile he did too.