Chapter 47.

 

Gina

 

 

When he sat down beside Cara again, Jared avoided looking at Sofi, but he had got himself pretty well under control. "Your initial stands for Lalia," he said to her. "Maud mentioned you the other day."

"Yes," she agreed, "I imagine so." Because I did tell her so, she said, and he smiled.

He took the certificate out of his pocket again and handed it to Dr. Maarchesin, and she put it down on the table in front of her.

"You should understand," she said, "that Maud really did have heart trouble."

"She looks healthy enough now," said Jared, "for being dead over a year."

"Well," said the doctor, "that has to do with moving to a more – salubrious climate. We sometimes have trouble here in your – places." She looked at Jared trying, Gina saw, to figure out what he knew and guessed; he looked back at her steadily, making it clear that he understood what she was saying. You are not one of our species; you are a different species, he said, and she nodded.

Alien, thought Gina, feeling odd, because this confirmed it; if they were a different species and her father was one of them –

"Maud was working here for many years before you knew her, doing things for us, our people. Many things," the doctor said. "And then it was necessary for her to leave, to go back to, well, our places. Preferably in a way that allowed her to conclude her business here in a natural style."

"A unique way," said Jared, "of ending a relationship."

"Look," said the doctor. "There aren't that many of us right now. There are only a few of us attached here to this specific world, and we are all well acquainted. I have known Maud all of my life. I know more about your relationship with her than you probably like. More than you know." In fact, she was positive of this, Gina saw, and Jared and Issio picked up on it too. Sofi was trying to read Zarei. For a Zamuaon, Zarei was remarkably mind-deaf. But then, she wasn't strictly a Zamuaon, either, was she, thought Gina, any more than Maud and Dr. Maarchesin and Chazaerte were strictly Earthian. "I can guess how you must feel," the doctor continued, "but she did what she thought was right. It was past time for you to go on with your own life; she felt she had been selfish in keeping you with her as long as she did. It was time for her to let go, and this –" she touched the certificate – "had a certain finality about it."

Jared weighed it; he had Cara in his mind, Gina saw, his feelings about her, which were straight and direct, and his feelings about Maud, which were complex, and the ties between the two women; Rapunzel, he thought, and then he glanced at Gina, catching her mind, and smiled.

Cara, withdrawn, could not be read at all, not even surface thoughts.

"Apparently not enough finality," he said. "She seems to be still with us."

"That can't be helped," said the doctor. "As I said, there are not that many of us. And we must protect our children."

"From?"

"From the enemy," she said.

Zarei made a small sound of protest. "Maud says we should not say anything yet until we know more," she said, her white tail nervously curling and uncurling and her tail rings sparkling in the sunshine.

The doctor shrugged. "That's too bad," she said, and handed the death certificate back to Jared. "But Maud doesn't always get her own way. This has already gone too far. They know too much. We underestimated them," she told Zarei, who picked at her bracelets uneasily.

"As I said," Dr. Maarchesin continued, "there are very few of us left. We began as a distinct species, but it was not possible for our ancestors to reproduce in this universe; it was barely possible for them to survive, and their children could not, without the genes of those native to this place. So we are all the products of crossbreeding. The aim was the old, instinctive one; your people feel it also – to ensure the survival of our species in general, and our personal genetic lines in particular, and this was the only way it could be done. And that, too, proved very difficult. Even now, we have very few children, many of them showing no inheritance from us at all. We greatly value those who do. You, Dr. Lindstrom, and you, Sofi, and you and your brothers, Gina, are extremely important to us."

"In that case," said Cara, "why weren't we raised as you must have been, Dr. Maarchesin, knowing what we were and in touch with what you say are our own people?"

"It is our custom," said the doctor, "to have offspring with our own people, if possible, to keep the genetic lines as pure as possible, and to have children here, in your worlds, with your people. To strengthen our species for the future." This was somewhat true, Gina thought, and felt Jared and Issio weighing it also. It was far from being the full truth. Her thoughts spread in many directions; Gina saw them reaching and bending and connecting and disconnecting.

"Crossbreeding," said Issio, "is very difficult to achieve between species. We understand it very imperfectly, and do not have the technology at present to succeed in it. Your people have this technology?"

"But it doesn't always work," said the doctor. "As I said, we have very few children." There were other reasons for their reduced numbers too – even when Dr. Maarchesin was a child, Gina saw, there had been many more of their people, and something had caused their numbers to decrease abruptly. But she wasn't going to talk about what had happened to them – something bad, Gina thought, and Issio nodded across the table to her, agreeing.

"Okay. You want to preserve your people," said Jared, "which is certainly a natural desire. You do this by preserving your genetic heritage, but that isn't enough. You need to preserve your language and your customs, your culture. That is as important as your genes; that is what makes you unique. You were apparently raised in the culture of your species, but Cara and Gina and Sofi were not. Why not?"

"Because we are only partly of their people," said Sofi, slanting a green-eyed look at Zarei, who was still very uneasy. "Because we are not pure enough."

"Oh, heavens, no," said the doctor. She shook her head, looked across the table at Sofi in her maternity dress, looked quickly toward Jared and Cara, looked down at the glass in her hand. She was thinking furiously, and Gina caught only hints, glimpses; Sofi's pregnancy; the power around Jared and Issio; Cara and Maud, gold and white; the Its; Gina and Terry and Willis; tangled fears, hopes that Gina couldn't read.

"Our culture, Dr. Ramirez, is kept on our plane because it isn't useful here in your worlds. It is necessary that our children here connect with the culture of this plane, because this is where they belong. This is part of what they bring us," she added brightly, and that wasn't really true at all; Jared and Issio and Gina all looked at her, making it clear they knew that, and she looked back and grinned, acknowledging.

"Breeding," said Issio. "This is a planned and controlled matter." He looked thoughtfully at the doctor, trying, Gina felt, to penetrate her mind, not having much luck at the moment.

"Yes," she said, "this is planned."

"To what end?" inquired Sofi.

"To reach a point where our species can live in both our places and your places without limitation, can move freely between them. After all these centuries, we are still unable to do that for any length of time," she said. "We are now – more hopeful." She looked again at Sofi, and then back to her glass.

"So, Dr. Maarchesin," said Jared.

"Call me Lalia," she said.

"Lalia. So you are trying to breed what we could call a hybrid species," said Jared, glancing at Issio, who nodded confirmation. "The problem is that the culture is being maintained by only part of your people, never taught to those from whom, I gather, this ideal hybrid species will come. That makes no sense. How can you base your future on people ignorant of your way of life? How can you expect your culture to be carried on by children you never taught, never parented?"

"When we see the proper results of our breeding," said Dr. Maarchesin, "we intend to become involved –"

"Hi, there," said Jared. "I'm your dear old father from a different dimension, and I'm here to tell you all about it. Sorry that I wasn't around when you needed help with the bully down the block and when you broke your leg falling out of the tree, but I was busy. Now that you don't need me, I can make some time for you."

"He did," said Gina, feeling as if she should, in justice, defend her father, "try to help us the other day. He was coming."

"When he got his shirt buttoned," said Jared, and then he looked at Gina and sighed. "I know, honey," he said. "He was trying. He is trying."

"And you have us," said Sofi.

"And we have you," murmured Issio, "and we share you with these others." And that gave Gina a warm feeling of belonging; she put her hand on his arm, feeling the soft body hair, and he swung his tail gently, pleased.

"You see, you don't need us," said Lalia, lifting her glass of lemonade.

"Do you," inquired Cara, "have a child of your own out here somewhere?"

A pause. "Yes," said Lalia. "A son. He is being raised by his father's family. What kind of a life could we give him?" she exclaimed. "We exist – between worlds. Between dimensions. You are much better off here; he is better off here, no matter what his circumstances are."

"I wonder," said Cara, looking down into her glass; Jared put an arm around her.

"I understand none of this," said Issio abruptly. "Your people appear to live as some species of animals do. I recall an Earthian bird, called the cuckoo. It practices brood parasitism; it will lay its eggs in the nests of other birds, so that their chicks will be raised without effort on the part of the parents. Other birds will do the work. You spoke of the passing on of culture, Jared, which is your field; perhaps they believe their culture will be passed as is the identify of the cuckoo, by instinct. Again the parents do not choose to make the effort." He took Sofi's hand. "We shall do it better," he said to her, and she nodded emphatically.

"So," said Cara, determined, Gina saw, to pin it down. "Maud is my mother."

"Yes," said Lalia, answering bluntness with bluntness. "And Zarei is yours," she told Sofi, whose tail bushed, if possible, even more.

"You meddled at Fetal Research," said Sofi. "You are a doctor; you are able to do so."

"More or less," said Lalia, glancing at Zarei, but Zarei was too busy not looking at anyone to answer.

"For your breeding program," said Sofi, with a fang-showing curl of her lip.

"Okay," said Cara; she had a very firm set to her mouth, Gina thought. "Maud said she had two children. I have a brother or a sister."

"A half brother," said Lalia. "You should let Maud tell you – "

Gina looked at the face that rose in Lalia's mind. "Chazaerte," she said, startled. "My – Chazaerte!"

"Oh, hell," said Jared, not particularly pleased.

"Thirty-two demons," said Sofi, smacking the table with all claws out. "He is an idiot!" she said, and then, remembering that Cara and Gina were right there at the table with her, she sighed and pulled herself together. Gina could feel the effort. "But I do not know him well, no doubt he has excellent qualities," she said, and reached for Gina. "He did come to help," she pointed out.

"No," said Issio, putting his large hand on Gina's shoulder. "He is an idiot. This is proved by his failure to take responsibility for his children, who are all outstanding young persons, of which any intelligent parent should be proud. A cuckoo," he told Gina, "with no sense at all."

"Is this true?" Cara asked Lalia. "This – Chazaerte is my brother?"

"Yes. And he's not that bad," she said to Sofi, who snorted. "I've known him for years – "

"Him," said Sofi. "Not Cara, who is a worthwhile person, talented, intelligent, one who makes a contribution to the world. By your teaching, yes," she said to Cara, "and also by the writing you will do. You people do not know Cara. You know this man, this Chazaerte; he has made three contributions to the world, Willis and Terry and Gina. I am glad he did so, but I see no other worthy action on his part." She looked at Cara, trying, as Gina and Issio and Jared were all doing, to at least find surface thoughts to help them guess what direction her thoughts were taking, but there was nothing available, and they withdrew. "Ridiculous," Sofi said abruptly, and pushed her glass aside. "I am finished here," she announced. She sent one grim glance toward Zarei and stood up. "She will not give us more answers," she said to Jared, who paused to study Lalia for a moment and then nodded abruptly and folded the death certificate into his pocket.

"Thank you for your time," he said.

"I realize this is difficult in many ways," she said, "but we really are trying our best, for us and for all of you. For you, too, Dr. Ramirez."

The black ones/the old ones/the strong ones; it crossed Gina's mind like a distant roll of drums, and she looked up, startled; Lalia meant Jared, she realized, and Issio. There was something special about them, the power she had seen, and something more.

"For me," said Jared, an edge to his voice; he had not heard her last thought. And he did not care for their efforts on his behalf, and he resented what they had done for Cara and for Gina and Terry and Willis. He saw hurt and confusion and no gain.

"Who was your father?" Lalia asked him, watching him closely, and Zarei made a small frightened sound in her throat.

"My father," said Jared, "was some big beautiful black guy. In no way could he have been related to your people."

"Very true," said Lalia. "But we are not the only powerful ones." Her eyes drifted to Sofi. "It will be interesting to see your child when she is born," she said. "She should be something quite remarkable."

"She will," said Sofi, looking at Zarei, "and no thanks to you! Slavering spitting demons from the pit!" She turned, her tail bushed and switching furiously and headed off around the corner of the house for the street.

"Stress," sighed Issio, and got up and hurried after her, and Jared took Cara's hand and lifted an eyebrow to Gina and the three of them got up too.

"Stop by any time you're in the neighborhood," said Dr. Maarchesin cheerfully, sitting at the table with her lemonade. From the street Gina could hear Sofi saying something about devils in pools of venom, and Issio murmuring soothingly. Zarei cringed.

"It's been interesting," said Jared, grinning, and led the way after Sofi.

 

They sat, the five of them, around a table in the hotel dining room. They were by no means the only group there; Wark's Ferry could not be anyone's idea of a tourist stop, but there were quite a lot of people there anyway of all species, including two groups of D'ubians crowded happily together into a single large table in the corner, where the lights were turned down for their comfort.

"They negotiate with the farmers," explained Sofi. "They purchase and distribute. It is done this way in Tandoi also. These are business people."

The three Bahtans at the table by the door actually had their screens out, eating cereal and salad and cakes one-handed while tapping keyboards and craning over the top of the screens to converse. The two Zamuaon males, also with screens, sat at separate tables dipping cubes of meat into sauce and, for the most part, ignoring each other. Now and then one would look up and growl something at the other, and both tails would switch sharply. These were competitors, Gina guessed.

Their group was somewhat subdued. There was a lot to think about, and Gina thought that even if she did not have Ears, she still would have felt the seething emotions around her. Sofi simmered with resentment. Cara was closed off into her own thoughts; this was not unusual, but there was an unusually grim quality to the barrier this time.

"We should have asked more questions," said Sofi, chewing delicately on a meat stick. "I am sorry. I was angry. What you said was right, Issio. These beings are the cuckoos of the galaxy."

"I like that," said Jared with a smile.

"And you sit there laughing," Sofi said to him.

"Sofi, you looked like you were sitting next to Wark the Quarg's ugly stepdaughter," said Jared. "I expected you to go for her throat at any moment."

"I would not," said Sofi with a sniff. "She is in no way important to me. I am only angry because she and that doctor believed that she is important to me. I have managed very well without her for all the years of my life. I wish to continue to do so."

"Don't you wonder," said Cara, out of her own thoughts, "why? Jared is right. An ideal species, indeed; it doesn't make sense. They have something else in mind with us. They must have."

"Such as what?" said Issio. "I think it is only their nature."

"To abandon us at birth," said Cara, "and to use us for entertainment later? To set us up," she said, glancing quickly at Jared's hand, holding his fork at the next plate; she didn't look at his face, so she didn't, Gina guessed, see the concerned look he cast at her.

"How do you mean, sweetheart?" he said.

"Well, she certainly enjoyed you," she said, "for years and years. And then she decided to back off, but she set you up with me instead. And why would that be, do you suppose? Controlled breeding, that's what; we're part of their plan for the ideal race. Some special mix of genes they want. And once you get me pregnant, once we produce a child, then I've served my purpose and you can have Maud back again."

He stared at her. "No," he said. "That's not how this is going to work. No, sweetheart."

"My mother," said Cara bitterly. "Oh, damn!" She threw down her napkin and sprang up and walked rapidly out of the dining room. The three Bahtans at the door glanced at her with mild curiosity as she went past them and then returned to their business.

"Oh, no! Oh, Jared," said Sofi, concerned, and she pushed back her chair. "It is my fault; she saw how angry I was, but that is another matter entirely. I will talk with her," she said, and Jared put out a hand to stop her.

"No," he said, getting up. "No, no. Just finish your dinner, all three of you. This is up to me."

"Are you caught between them?" asked Issio, trying, Gina saw, to read him quickly, and not quite able to reach him past the upset of the moment. "Cara and Maud?"

"No," he said. "I'm not. I'm entirely with Cara."

He walked across the dining room, past the Bahtans, who paid him no attention, and out of eyesight. Gina, not alone, saw him cross the lobby, where Cara stood, back turned, waiting for the lift. He touched her shoulder, and she turned her head away; he bent to look into her face. She was trying hard not to cry; she hated to cry, and he knew it. And then, the lift door finally opening, he put an arm around her and whisked her inside, warning off with a glance an approaching couple with two filled shopping bags. They hesitated and the lift door closed and Gina saw him take Cara into his arms with great tenderness and she saw Cara's tense shoulders begin to relax, and Gina and Sofi and Issio pulled away at the same moment.

"It is a miserable situation," said Sofi with a sigh. "I do not blame Cara for being upset. But she has no reason to worry. Jared will never return to Maud; this is the way he is made. He has closed that door, and will never reopen it."

"It is difficult," said Issio, "with Maud frequently intruding. Cara has made an interesting point. Does this matter revolve around breeding?"

Sofi put a protective hand on her abdomen. "I do not like that thought," she said. "This baby belongs to us, not to them." The thought caused her tail to bush out again, Gina saw.

"Yes," said Issio. "That is correct. This baby is our baby." His expression was grim; Gina would not like to see what would happen to anyone who disagreed. He and Sofi looked at each other, and then Sofi reached out to touch his hand and his claws retracted and her tail relaxed again.

is "Well," she said, on a lighter note. "We three have the evening here. I do not think we shall count upon Jared and Cara joining us. We must see for ourselves what sort of entertainment we may find in Wark's Ferry in the nighttime."

"Perhaps there is a show," said Issio, "which we all three could enjoy. Or we could find maybe a place where we may look for souvenirs of our stay here. Otherwise," he said, "I am sure we will forget all about this weekend, which has been so boring, so lacking in interest." He put his thumb print on the bottom of the bill the robot waiter presented, and then he got up and offered one arm to Sofi, and one to Gina and escorted them past the Bahtan businesswomen with a flourish.