Shadows (25 page)

We were on a corner lot of a street near one edge of town, and we had to go clear across town and out the other side to where Takahiro lived. We saw a car turn and come down our street, and several passed by on the main road as we drove toward it. Val stopped at the intersection.

“Look,” whispered Takahiro.

There were three soldiers standing on the sidewalk, watching the cars pass. They had the big orange cobey unit badges on their hats, and one of them was holding something like a video tablet or ’tronic desk up and looking at it.

All three of them turned their heads and looked at us.

Suddenly the car was full of a
smell.
I can’t describe it, but anyone who has spent as much time at an animal shelter as I have knows smells like it. It’s a clean smell—it’s not about dirty bedding or food bowls or anything—but it’s a
critter
smell. I reached forward and put my hands on Takahiro’s shoulders. And squeezed. Hard. “You’re okay,” I said. “You’re here, you’re with us, you’re okay.”

His hands came up and grabbed mine. Really hard. “I shouldn’t have eaten so much,” he said in a muffled voice. “This has never happened before. But if I were still weak and hungry I bet I couldn’t . . .”

“You’re not going to,” I said, trying to remember how Ms. Dunstable—who was also Mom’s friend Joanna— made her voice go all solid-state when she was talking to the full school assembly. “You’re going to stay the way you are right now because while Val and I are okay with you no matter what, these soldiers aren’t.” Takahiro was panting—way too much like a dog. Or a wolf. Mongo whined. The soldiers were sauntering toward us, like daring Val to step on the gas and make a run for it. Val was looking out the window, his hands motionless on the steering wheel. I thought,
Oh, gods, he’s performing for them.
Mongo whined again. Just before the first soldier leaned down to tap on Val’s window Takahiro let go of my hands. I sat back but twisted around and slid my right hand between the car door and Takahiro’s seat, and his hand dropped and grabbed it. Mongo whined a third time and with him straining toward the front seat I could just reach the snap, and flicked it loose. He was through the gap between the seats in a flash, sitting in Takahiro’s lap. Takahiro’s lap was nearly big enough. I saw Taks’ other hand rise, as if involuntarily, and run down Mongo’s silky head and back.

Val opened the window. “Good evening,” he said.

“Good evening, sir,” said the soldier with a kind of ugly politeness that reminded me of a teacher who is about to destroy you and is enjoying making you wait for it. “Our orders are to stop cars at random and our random-number generator chose you.” He showed his teeth and held up his box.

If that’s a random-number generator, I thought, I’m a werewolf. That crawly, itchy, something-behind-you feeling was so strong with him standing next to the car shoving his box almost through the window at Val that I thought I might very well morph into something myself—a gopher or a chipmunk maybe. Takahiro was still breathing in little sharp jerks like he wanted to pant—I could feel it through his hand—but he had his mouth closed. Possibly because Mongo was licking his face.

“And you are, sir?” said the soldier with the box. One of the other two soldiers aimed a flashlight in through the window. The blaze gave me the excuse to keep my eyes down.

“I am Valadi Crudon,” said Val. “This is my stepdaughter, Margaret, and her friend Takahiro.”

Val sounded perfectly calm, as if being stopped and cross-examined by soldiers was all a part of daily life, while I was thinking,
What the bugsuck is it to do with you, assface!
maybe almost loud enough for their hot machine to pick up. The
gruuaa
were all crammed against the floor of the car—a lot of them had come with us. Hix was between me and the back of the seat. I was at such a peculiar angle, hanging on to Taks’ hand, that if she was trying to stay hidden, there wasn’t that much shadow for her to disappear into. I was sure the soldiers couldn’t see her, but maybe the box could. The rest of the
gruuaa,
I realized, were eeling forward, to cluster around Takahiro.

“And you live, sir?” said the soldier with the box.

“Margaret”—
nobody
called me Margaret; it was like he was talking about someone else, which was maybe just as well—“and I live at the end of this street, 87 Jebali Lane. Takahiro lives on Sunrise Court. We are taking him home.”

“Out late on a school night, sir?” said the soldier with the box, smiling a smile as ugly as his politeness.

“Takahiro is an old friend of the family,” said Val, still calm. “And the school year has only just begun. There is little homework yet.”

The third soldier had been doing something I couldn’t see, behind the glare of the second soldier’s flashlight. I had only a sudden writhe from Hix, and heave from the
gruuaa
on the floor, as warning. I let go of Taks’ hand and flung myself back in my seat just before this searchlight big enough to light up the Marianas Trench blazed in at us. I could see
gruuaa
plastered around the window frame next to Taks, over the dashboard, along the strip of seat left empty by Taks’ narrow butt (although there was some hairy black and white Mongo tail in the way too). I thought maybe it was a good thing that the inside of Mom’s old car was a weird swirly pattern of black and grey, even if it meant it always needed vacuuming. Mongo yelped, Takahiro jerked, and Val sat like a stone, his head still a little turned toward the soldier with the box.

The light went out. I slithered around again and felt for Taks’ hand. Although even if they’d caught us holding hands, so? But I was glad they hadn’t.

“That dog shouldn’t be loose in the front seat,” said the soldier with the box, but now he sounded angry.

“No, he shouldn’t,” said Val. “Margaret?”

“Mongo,” I said, and my voice sounded funny, but the soldiers didn’t know what I usually sounded like. “Mongo, come on.”

Taks gave Mongo a last pat and a little push—and let go of my hand again. I reached between the seats and grabbed Mongo’s collar. He let me drag him into the back seat again, and clip on the harness strap.

“You’ll pardon us if we keep an eye out for you when you come back, I’m sure, sir,” said the first soldier, still angry. “For your own good, of course.”

For our own good?
I thought, chewing on the insides of my lips.

“Of course,” said Val. “Good evening, sir.” His “sir” sounded like “zir.” He pressed the button and the window glass slid up again. Then he waited patiently for a break in the traffic—there were a lot of people out late on a school night—and drove calmly across the intersection. The critter smell was fading, so I assumed Takahiro was all right. I reached forward again and patted his shoulder.

“What
was
that?” said Takahiro. He still sounded a little muffled.

I could see, under the flash of passing streetlights, that Val was frowning. “I’m not sure,” he said. “They certainly pulled us over because they were getting readings off their—whatever it was—that made them want to look at us more closely. I didn’t recognize it, but Orzaskan technology is different and I’m several years out of date. I doubt it was generating random numbers. That dazzle at the end was full of assessment radiation: the light was just a, er, blind. They didn’t find what they were hoping for, however, or they would not have let us go so quickly.”

“You told the
gruuaa
to protect Takahiro,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

Val shrugged. “He’s the most vulnerable of us. If they care to look me up, or if my name is already on their list, they will know who I—was. You, Maggie, have Hix, and through her the other
gruuaa
will also serve you.”

Takahiro said, “I can’t see them—the
gruuaa
—but I can feel them, or . . . the wolf can. It’s—it’s a little like someone putting a wet washcloth on your face when you have a fever. It’s better and you relax a little even though you know you’re still sick.”

Val nodded. “Good,” he said.

We were silent till Takahiro had to give Val directions. Sunrise Court was this huge non-development development—all the houses had like twenty bedrooms and eight-car garages and cottages for the staff, and the lots they were on were the size of football fields. You wouldn’t know they had anything to do with each other except that there was this gigantic gate that said
Sunrise Court
and then once you were through it you had to choose the private drive you wanted. There were only five of them but I still couldn’t imagine five families in Station wanting houses like that. The gate to Takahiro’s drive had to read his palm print before it would let us in.

Taks’ house was dark when we got there except for a porch light. “S’okay,” said Taks. “I told you. Kay’s left the porch light on. That means she got my text.”

“Taks—” I began.

“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Really. You guys are great. Including Mongo. Thanks. See you tomorrow, Mags,” and he got out. I did too, so I could sit in front. To my surprise he gave me a quick hug—and then sprinted to the house. Well, I don’t think it was a sprint, it’s just his legs are so long. He didn’t look back.
“Ja, mata,”
I said softly. See you later. But I saw . . . I thought saw . . .

I got back in the car and closed the door. “A lot of the
gruuaa
are going with Takahiro,” I said.

“Yes,” said Val. “As I said, he’s the most vulnerable of us.”

“What . . .” I said. And then didn’t know how to go on.

Val said, “They respond to fear and anxiety—not perhaps unlike how Mongo does. He may be hoping to sleep on your bed instead of in the kitchen, but he also wishes to comfort you—to stay near his person in her distress. Hix is important in the hierarchy of the company of
gruuaa
who befriended me many years ago—the rest will have accepted you because she so clearly does.”

I thought, Some day, some other day when there isn’t anything else going on, I want to hear about
gruuaa
society.

“We have demonstrated Takahiro is important to both of us. They will have drawn their own conclusions. I have some authority by long association, and I can say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I said ‘yes’ to their staying near Takahiro. Which is not to suggest that they always do what I ask them—rather like a dog again, perhaps, although
gruuaa
plan and conjecture more than dogs. They are neither domestic nor domesticated. But right now they are so pleased to have me recognize them again they are eager to do what I ask.”

“That’s really nice of you,” I said after a pause. Here I was doing something alone after dark with Val. And with his shadows. And saying “nice” to him. He’d called me his stepdaughter to the army creep. I suppose it made us sound more united or something.

Val glanced at me. “Takahiro will be all right once the military leave the area again, taking their equipment with them. Then the
gruuaa
will come back to us. Unless one of them develops an individual bond with Takahiro and decides to stay.”

“Do they all have names?” I said.

“Oh yes,” said Val. “But I do not know all of their names. I had—have wondered if the names they give us to use are the same as the ones they use to each other. Indeed I am not sure they use names among themselves.”

“But . . .” I said, and then couldn’t think how to go on. “But . . .”

“I was trying to be what I had promised to be,” said Val. “What I believed myself now to be.”

“How long?” I said. I didn’t know how to ask what I was really asking: How long ago was it that you killed your best friend? How do you—what do you do after that? Did your government just—knock you out somehow, like a zoo vet with a trank gun knocks out a tiger? Did they tie you up for two months, two years?

But he heard me anyway. “Seven years,” he said. “It took my government five years to . . . some of it was for their safety, but some of it was for mine.”

He was silent a minute, and then went on: “It has been a somewhat full two years, at last, when they let me go . . . since I came to Newworld. My old habits and instincts have no place here; and I had been out of the ordinary world entirely for five years. That there was a great swathe of my old skills and—facilities simply gone did not seem any more surprising or difficult than much else I found here. That I dreamed of much I had lost—including the
gruuaa
—that I imagined even that I saw them sometimes—did not seem surprising either. I still see my friend’s face. . . .” He was silent for another moment. “And then there was Elaine.” He shrugged again, that very un-Newworld shrug. “I suppose I will sound old and foolish to you when I say that Elaine has made my new life worthwhile, whatever I have lost.”

No, I thought, I think it’s about the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard anyone say who wasn’t in a book or a movie. For just a flash I was seeing Casimir’s grin in my memory. But then it faded, and it was Takahiro, looking at me levelly over a bowl of chickpea and tomato stew, and then looking away. Saying
ee, sugoi,
and smiling into his coffee. I barely knew what Takahiro’s smile looked like. I was pretty sure I’d like it if I got the chance to develop a relationship with it.

We stopped at a red light. When the light turned green Val added, “And now I am discovering—I must discover—what I have not lost.”

“And not get screwed up by Kleinzweig’s goons while you’re at it.”

“Yes.”

“Loophead,” I said.

“Yes,” said Val, who had (fortunately) caught on to my Mongo-nickname routine. You want your dog to react to the sound of his name, so you need to call him something else when you don’t want him to react. “I think it is a very good thing you brought him tonight,” Val continued. “We have proven that the army do not have a reading for werewolf, but Takahiro will have been emitting something that their meters might have read, if it weren’t for the
gruuaa
and—er—Loophead.”

“But they didn’t.”

“They did not, or we would be in three little rooms being asked questions,” said Val grimly. He glanced at me again. “I apologize. Perhaps it is not that way here.”