Sweet Starfire (16 page)

“I understand, Severance.”

His glare intensified at her meekness. “And stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, Severance.” She deliberately made her voice even gentler and more acquiescent.

Severance seemed briefly undecided about what to say next. Finally he turned to the older woman, who was watching the exchange with barely concealed amusement.

“Thanks, Desma. I appreciate this.”

“Anytime, Severance. Anytime, that is, that you turn up with an intelligent, well-mannered houseguest. I’m sure it won’t happen often.”

“Sweet Harmony. Why is every female in sight picking on me today?”

“Probably because you make such a good target,” Cidra offered far too politely. When he swung around to confront her, she smiled her most brilliant smile. “Have a good time, Severance. I’ll be here when you’re ready to leave.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.” He stalked to the door and disappeared into the glaring heat. The deflector screens hissed faintly as he passed between them.

A long, speculative silence pervaded the cool room. Through the window Cidra could see nothing except the row of octagonal houses and lab buildings across the dusty street. The street shouldn’t have been dusty. It was paved with an impermeable membrane that was almost as tough as the triaton and diazite of the structures. But there was a general grittiness in the air that hung over the entire town.

Desma Kady took a long swallow of her fruit juice. “Well,” she announced at long last, “this is all very interesting, you know. Small towns like Port Try Again tend to thrive on new gossip. And you’re bound to create some. I hope you won’t mind?”

“I’m rapidly becoming accustomed to Wolf ways,” Cidra told her. She tried her fruit juice. She couldn’t recognize the flavors but found the drink delicious. “A local product?” she asked, indicating her glass.

“Oh, yes. Like it?”

“Very much.” She took another sip.

“I’m very glad to have you stay here, Cidra. My husband is away for several days doing some fieldwork on toxins. It will be nice to have company. But I have to admit, I’m slightly curious. Why aren’t you staying on board ship? Severance usually does, and if you’re a member of his, uh, crew.?” She left the question hanging delicately.

Cidra adjusted the fold of her midday robe. “I believe Severance wants a little privacy for a few days. The cabin of a mail ship is a small place for two people to share for two weeks. He thought we should have a break from each other.”

“Ah.”

Cidra looked up, hoping her polite expression hid the faint wistfulness she was feeling. “I think he needs the privacy for other reasons too. There’s the matter of his obtaining some, uh, special handling. Wolves are very interested in sex, you know.”

“I know,” Desma assured her, smiling faintly. “I’ve been married for some time. Four children, all grown now.”

Cidra swallowed fruit juice. “I’m sure you understand the situation.”

“So this really is a crew contract you’ve signed? Not a convenience contract?”

“Definitely.”

“This gets more intriguing by the minute. You know, Severance signed a convenience contract once. No one knows for certain what happened, but the contract was terminated by mutual consent by the time Severance Pay hit Renaissance. I almost felt sorry for the young woman. She was absolutely enraged, according to those who saw her. Not many did. She never even left the terminal. Severance bought her a return ticket and she left on the next outbound commercial freighter. People said it was a miracle that the woman and Severance had avoided killing each other somewhere between Lovelady and Renaissance.”

“He told me the story.”

“Did he?” Desma seemed surprised.

“By way of warning, I think. I informed him I wasn’t interested in a convenience contract.”

“And he took you on as crew? There’s a registered agreement?”

“Well, at the moment it’s still an informal, verbal agreement, but Severance and I both take it quite seriously.”

“More and more interesting,” Desma mused. Then she set down her empty glass. “Did you really read that dull piece I did on bioluminescence?”

Cidra nodded eagerly. “One of the advantages of being an archivist. One gets to explore so many different fields. Unfortunately I’m not an expert in any one area, except First Family fiction, which is not exactly on the cutting edge of research. But I can assure you that your article was far from dull. There were many requests for it from Harmonic researchers doing work in related fields.”

Desma looked pleased. “Would you be interested in seeing the lab?”

“I would. enjoy that very much.”

The long lab structure was just as Desma had promised, hot and muggy like the outside air. In addition the heavy atmosphere was overlaid with a distinctive, unpleasant odor that caused Cidra to wrinkle her nose as she stepped inside.

“Bugs,” Desma explained cheerfully. “Put a lot of them in one place and they tend to smell. We keep things as clean as possible, but you can’t ever escape the odor completely. You get used to it.”

“That’s what Severance said about the humidity.” Cidra looked around with grave interest. Long aisles of cages constructed of clear panels stretched from one end of the lab building to the other. In some cases the panels were of tempered diazite, just like the windows. Cidra contemplated what that said about the creatures housed inside. It took a great deal to cut through tempered diazite.

“Acid,” Desma said, pausing beside a yellowed diazite cage to peer inside. “That’s the reason for the tempered walls. Some of these critters produce an acid that can dissolve normal diazite or clear silitron.”

“Severance said there were many corrosive elements on Renaissance. He said it was hard on machinery.” Cidra looked into the cage. “I don’t see anything in there.”

“Keep looking. There, on that branch. See the eyes?”

Cidra saw the eyes, all right. She gasped and took an automatic step backward before remembering that the malevolent gaze was trapped on the other side of a strong, clear wall. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” she breathed, unable to look away now. The eyes were hard, glittering, faceted structures of deep amber. They stared out at her as if the insect brain behind them longed for nothing more than to be able to suck the blood from her body. Huge, folded wings, more delicate-looking than the spun crystal moss of her gown, shimmered with an eerie phosphorescence. Long, spindly legs were bent into a springing position. The creature had been hard to detect for a moment because its general color was the same as its background. It was an uncomfortably large creature, almost a meter in height.

“Cute little Bloodsucker, isn’t he? Raised him from a pup,” Desma declared.

Cidra swallowed. “Is Bloodsucker its name or what it does?”

“Both. He sucks blood when he’s hungry,” Desma said, “which is nearly all the time. Nothing on Renaissance passes up the chance for a meal. No guarantee about when the next one will be coming along. I’m doing some work on the phosphorescent effect produced in the wings. My husband is working on the venom it uses to kill its prey. It’s the acid in the venom that can eat through most cage materials.” She straightened. “Over here I’ve got a rather nice assortment of Stoners. Pretty tame compared to the Bloodsucker but interesting all the same. A Harmonic expert in Clementia and I have been exchanging information quite regularly for a year or so. We’re going to collaborate on an article soon.”

“You’re working with someone at Clementia?” Cidra asked.

“Otan Greenlove. Do you know him?”

Cidra nodded. “A most respected teacher. I had a class in bio ecological theory with him.” She had also had a very un-Harmonic crush on the man that she could only hope she’d managed to conceal at the time. She had found concealing such things difficult when she was in her sixteenth year, but she’d practiced hiding her emotional responses from a very early age. She had known almost before she could walk that strong emotional responses were not viewed as normal behavior among Harmonics.

“He’s been a tremendous help to me in my studies. Has access to computer simulation equipment I can’t get here on Try Again.” Desma leaned down to gaze affectionately at the tiny-waisted insects in the cage. “Handsome as any renegade too. Met him a few months ago. Pity. All those dark good looks wasted on a Harmonic. Ah, well, I’m a married woman.” She grinned at her houseguest. “Ready for the rest of the tour?”

With eager curiosity Cidra followed Desma Kady down the long aisles, gazing with fascination at each new horror. Some of the creatures were half familiar to her from her academic work, but most were strange and marvelous. Some crawled on legless bellies, others floated in the air, waiting endlessly for prey. A few hopped around on fragile legs that could be re-grown in the event one was lost. Cold, gleaming eyes of every shape and hue looked out at Cidra, assessing her status as potential food. It was an unnerving experience to be gazed upon with so much malicious intent.

Desma and her husband had combined their fields of expertise, doing a great deal of crossover work and sharing the same lab facilities. They worked for an aggressive research firm that funded the studies in exchange for full rights to anything marketable they produced.

“Our latest success was an interesting new pesticide. It’s being tested right now on Lovelady. Doesn’t seem to alter the environment or the agricultural product in any way but has an uncanny effect against glitterbugs.”

“I read a lot about them in the First Family novels and memoirs. They were a real scourge in the early days. Destroyed countless plantings. They’ve been just barely under control for years, haven’t they? They keep mutating, so don’t new pesticides have to be found on a regular basis?”

Desma smiled at Cidra’s familiarity with the subject. “With any luck our company will be producing the newest counter-assault. Should make a tidy bundle for all of us.” Desma moved on. “Over here I’ve got my current pride and joy. These two beauties were the basis for that monograph I wrote on bioluminescence.”

Cidra studied the two creatures behind the tempered diazite. They were a pale, washed-out shade of green, unusually unassuming compared with their more colorful neighbors. Huge, faceted eyes followed her avidly as she moved around in front of the cage. The wings were folded over its elongated body. The back two tiers of legs were clearly designed for long, ground-covering leaps.

“They’re smaller than I would have expected,” Cidra said. “Considering the damage they’re capable of doing.” The insectoid creatures were about half a meter in height. “But they’re not glowing! In your monograph you said they glowed all over, bodies as well as wings.”

“The luminescent effect is selective. They can activate it at will, and they only do so when they’ve located prey. And they only hunt in the dark. They use the glow to momentarily paralyze the victim.”

“That’s right,” Cidra said, recalling the rest of the monograph. “I remember now about them hunting at night. The eyes are heat-sensing as well as motion-sensing?”

“Definitely. Watch, I’ll give you a free show.” Desma walked across the room and touched several pads on a wall panel. The light faded, and the windows were sealed with automatic shutters. There was a general rise in the chittering, chattering, clacking sounds from the inhabitants of the cages as sudden darkness descended.

Cidra waited for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. “They’re still not glowing.”

“Take a step closer to the cage and act like prey.” With a laugh Cidra stepped closer.

“How do I do that?”

“Just breathe. You’ll have to get fairly close because the diazite interferes with their normal ability to sense heat. If you touch the cage wall, you’ll really get a reaction.”

Cidra waited, breathing deeply. Blindly she put a finger on the diazite cage. And quite suddenly she had her answer. The two Rigor Mortis Mantises lit up with harsh intensity, their bodies glowing with a blue-white light that was startling and terrifying. Brilliant eyes locked with hers for an instant, projecting such an inhuman hunger that Cidra’s stomach turned to ice. She saw the glowing liquid venom drip from hard mandibles. She had time enough to see the segmented, upraised front limbs poised to seize her throat, and then the mantises leapt. The terror of the moment froze her to the spot. Every nerve in her body was shouting for her to run but she couldn’t move. Her mouth was open but no scream emerged. Cidra knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she was about to become food.

There was a small clicking noise as the mantises struck the tempered diazite, but it took several seconds for Cidra to register the fact that there was a barrier between herself and death. Slowly she tried to regain her self-control, a part of her brain all too well aware that she would have been mantis food by now if there had been no diazite. She shuddered with a sense of genuine horror. The lights came on at once. The mantises went back to being an unassuming shade of pale green. It seemed to Cidra, however, that they looked irritated at having been denied their prey.

“Sorry about that,” Desma said, hurrying forward. “Everything okay? It does make for a fairly graphic display, doesn’t it?”

“I knew what to expect, but I was still quite stunned when they switched on that glow. I’ve never seen anything like it, Desma. It’s terrifying.” With a great effort of will Cidra forced herself to calm down. The adrenaline was still hurtling through her system. “They sensed my body heat through the diazite?”

“They are exquisitely sensitive to heat. But they rely on the prey’s movements, as well, to map out the general location of the victim. Altogether a highly sophisticated sensory system, which they need, naturally, because they only attack in the dark.”

“Amazing.”

“My husband has found that their venom is capable of producing a temporary paralysis in a creature as big as a man. The mantis attacks, administers the venom, and then backs off to wait until the victim has been immobilized. Then the mantis sits down to a leisurely dinner. The paralysis looks a lot like rigor mortis and takes an hour or so to wear off. By then there’s usually not much left of the victim.”