The Companions (9 page)

The rest of the way along the blue wall was almost totally silent, though I saw a few people leaving or entering the core
and half a dozen machine operators noisily inspecting a weird piece of equipment in a far corner. At the final wall, I called down another lift and stepped through it to the far side.

Someone nearby said “Ahem,” almost tentatively.

The figure was robed. It could have been anyone. I took a deep breath and risked it. “Hatty?”

Hatty lifted her veil. “My dear. Are they wearing robes in NW Urbs?”

“No.” I gasped with relief. “They don't. I found the stuff near where I came into the tower.”

She sniffed back a tear. “Take that robe off, put it in the lift, and send the lift all the way up, just in case the robe might be identified somehow. Then put this one on. I bought it for you, so you could get to my level without being seen.”

When I took off the robe, she gasped. “My dear, what in the name of serenity has happened to you?”

“I forgot about not getting into an empty carrier.”

“Oh, child, child. You look beaten half to death. Your whole face is bruised, and look at your arms!”

“All of me is bruised, Hatty. Don't fuss. It's nothing that won't heal.”

Hattie started to hug me, then thought better of it since there was no nonlivid part of me to grasp. I struggled into the new robe, as she said, “I didn't bring the flit because I thought people might be looking for you in the flit or pod lobbies, so we're going to take the passenger lift to the sorting lobby on the fiftieth floor. There's a fixed monitor to the right of the lift door as we go out. I'll move out and put my large self right against it while you walk past me and get at least twenty feet away. It will yammer at me, ‘Do not loiter, move on,' but you pay no attention, just move quickly past, so I can move and shut the thing up. We'll do the same thing at each monitor until we get home. I've been scouting for two days. We can avoid all but five, but I know where all the beastly things are!”

According to Joram, all four of the Lipkin sisters had been a bit wild. Seeing Hatty in action, I could believe it.
She blocked the monitors all the way to her apartment, including her own door monitor, until I was safely inside. Only after we were inside did she tear up again, dabbing at her wet eyes with her sleeve as she helped me out of the robe.

“Do you really think they're looking for you this soon, dear?”

I thought about it for a moment. “No. Not yet. Since I sometimes spend several days at the sanctuary, they'll assume I'm there, or with Paul and Tad. When I don't show up for six or seven days, that's when they'll start querying the past-this-point recorders.”

She shook her head, angrily. “Tad and I had a long talk, on a public link just in case they had his link or mine diverted. He told me about everything. I'm so furious at that dreadful woman! Tad has decided that since you've come down to stay with me, he'd like to come, too. He says he's only stayed this long because of you, and it seems Luth Fannett would love nothing better than to have the liaison contract terminated. Tad says Paul is impossible to please, which doesn't surprise me. Matty despaired of him when he was only a child. Tad is family, however, just as you are, and I'm listed in Matty and Joram's original liaison as an appropriate guardian until he's eighteen. So long as I serve as coparent, there'll be no problem.”

“I didn't realize that Luth was eager to…”

“According to Tad, she badly wants out. Paul sounds most unpleasant!”

I shook my head. “It's probably not Paul as much as it is Paul and his concs. He and I share a father, so he tolerates me so long as I let him manage me. He doesn't share anything with Taddeus, so he doesn't spend any of his limited supply of congeniality on Tad.”

She drew herself up, eyes flashing. “And does he manage you?”

“I let him think so. It makes him feel as though he's in charge, and when he's being in charge, he's reasonably
pleasant and sometimes interesting. I admit that Tad and Luth are much happier when Paul's away, which means I am, too. Tad's a lot like Mother, and we're fond of one another.”

Hattie shook her head at me. “Well then, it's for the best. Fortuitously, there's available space adjacent to this apartment, and I've already spoken for an allotment for Tad. It will be enough for you to have a little room of your own, Jewel dear, even if no one is to know you're here. How long do you think you'll need to hide?”

She saw from my blank expression that I wasn't up to making predictions, so she hugged me very gently, and we stopped talking about it. In fact, I stayed in Hattie's apartment for months. My little room was hardly more than a closet, but I only used it to sleep in, or to hide when Hatty had visitors. When I needed a doctor, as I did soon after arrival, one of Hattie's medical friends paid a call. When my few bits of clothing wore out, Hattie bought a new supply. So far as Dame Cecelia was concerned, I was dead, though Tad stayed in touch with my arkist friends in the Northwest, who knew differently.

Tad brought word from Shiela Alred that Dame Cecelia was in a rage at my disappearance. No one except the lowliest down-dweller could vanish, but I had done so. Record checks of past-this-point monitors showed nothing. I had not returned to Witt's apartment or to Paul's. I was not at the sanctuary. I hadn't taken space anywhere else. After Taddeus moved to Baja, BuOr spent some time watching his comings and goings, but he didn't lead them anywhere but back and forth to school.

When the better part of a year had gone by, Gainor Brandt met Botrin Prime at a meeting of upper-level bureaucrats, where Boaty confided that Dame Cecelia had stopped looking for me.

When Gainor asked why she had been so determined, Prime said, “She's been watching the birth registry, trying to learn if Jewel had a child by her son.”

Gainor repeated this to Shiela, who told Tad, who told me.

Shiela had been right all along about the Dame. Hatty arrived home to find me in tears, though whether of anger, grief, or relief, I couldn't say.

“What happened?”

I told her what I'd heard.

Hatty sniffed. “I imagine you're feeling an ambiguous amalgamation of vengefulness and exhaustion.”

“I don't know what to feel,” I confessed. “Not about her, or me, or even Witt.”

She sniffed. “If Matty had lived, you would never have liaised with Witt.”

That stung. “Matty wouldn't have stopped my loving him,” I cried. Which was crazy, because that word wasn't one we'd used, not ever, not even when we were in bed together, but recently I'd been preferring to believe I loved him. Everything seemed so pointless, otherwise.

“Not if you really did, Jewel, but you didn't really pick him as a mate, you know. You wanted to get away from Paul. You were at loose ends regarding your own future. It was a way out, and you liked Witt well enough…”

Her assessment was entirely too close to my own valuation of the real situation. “I'm very fond of Witt…”

“How would you know? Paul has been manipulating your feelings since you were a child, so you've learned to repress them, all of them, not only loud, vehement emotions but the subtle ones you need for day-to-day guidance…”

I had no idea what she meant, and said so, angrily.

She looked over my shoulder, her face grim. “We all have little feelings that tell us something isn't quite right, that there's danger lurking, that trouble brews, that a person whom we otherwise like quite well disturbs us in unpleasant ways. When the subtle warnings are stifled, we're handicapped.”

“I don't think I ever had any,” I said, still miffed.

“All the Lipkin women have them! If Matty had lived, she'd have taught you to pay attention to them. If you'd been more aware, your own sensibilities would have warned you about Witt.”

It was true that I was angry about Witt and at him, but that didn't mean I didn't grieve over his loss. He hadn't deserved his fate, whatever it had been! No matter how impossibly he'd behaved during the last day we'd been together, he had not deserved that. Besides, I told myself I had many nice memories of him. I told myself I must have loved him, or I wouldn't remember him so often. I did not, then, analyze the memories for actual content, though I did so eventually, with considerable chagrin.

That was the only time Hatty was anything but loving and supportive, and I simply forgot her analysis, or at least set it aside. I went out into the world again, and we went on with our reasonably comfortable lives in the weeks and months that followed until, on my twentieth birthday, I received a link from Paul.

In a surprisingly affable tone, he said: “Taddeus told me where to reach you because I have something that might interest you…”

“Interest me, Paul?”

“If you're interested in seeing some nonterrestrial animals, or visiting some other world. You used to talk about going off planet a good deal. I have a contract on Quondangala to study Quondan linguistics as part of an analysis of Human-Quondan legal terminology for Earth Bureau of Trade.”

“I'm not a linguist, Paul.”

“Of course you're not, Jewel. But you're a woman, and the Quondan are bisexual, with rather rigid societal expectations. The contract is dependent on my being part of a ‘couple.' They tell me a female relative will do.”

So I would “do.” Though his all-too-typical approach made me seethe, the prospect of off-planet travel was exciting! Something new. Something that didn't remind me constantly of Witt.

The Quondan people are often described as faceless. In truth, their sensory apparatus is merely concealed. They have ears hidden behind smooth webbing, mouths under a
flap of skin, eyes that peer from behind a fringe of tendrils. They do not betray their feelings through facial expression, obviously, though one can pick up a good deal from their tone of voice.

In late afternoon the females, the Quondana, entertain one another at “Anglazhee,” or “sound-viewing of the trees.” On Quondangala, trees unfold at dawn and fold up toward evening with a melodic wooden clucking. Groves are planted that fold themselves harmonically. On one such occasion, when I remarked that I was fond of animals, a particular Quondana invited me to visit a farm, which I did. I had thought that unfamiliar animals would be interesting, but the several varieties I saw were sluggish and unintelligent, which surprised me.

In a later conversation I inquired about wild animals, learning there were none, and I remarked, without thinking, “We had many animals on Earth that were quite intelligent. It surprises me that yours are so…lacking in interest.”

“Caaa,” breathed the Quondana. “There were indeed intelligent creatures, but being pious, we killed them all.”

I breathed slowly, willing myself not to flush. Tad has always teased me about turning red when I am upset, and I did not want to give offense. “Indeed,” I replied, as casually as possible.

“Caaa. Our scripture teaches that Great He/She Quondanapu made only Quondan pairs in His/Her image in all aspects, as is evident from the fact we bear His/Her name! Therefore, to have any creature except ourselves resembling the great Quondanapu in any aspect is an affront to the Holiness. Intelligence is an aspect of the great Quondanapu.”

“I see,” I murmured, forcing myself to sit quietly.

The Quondana continued, “Unfortunately, we were ignorant at that time of other deities. When we first encountered other intelligent races, we thought they were also an affront to the Holiness! We behaved piously and sought to kill them.”

“Really?” I murmured. “Which ones?”

“Oh, several. The Tharstians. The Orskimi. The Derac, who were—are—very strong, very ferocious. They like war very much, and they retaliated against us. Quondanga lost several worlds, many, many people.”

“But you are at peace with them now?”

“One cannot be at peace with quishimug, how you say? Those-not-like-oneself. But one can be amgrug, that is, not-at-war. We are amgrug with Earth or its people. We allow you fissimugra, tolerated-verminhood. This state of affairs is thanks to our great philosopher, Quandatis-bor-Bastree. It was Bastree who pointed out that other starfaring races had no doubt been created by other gods to resemble themselves. Thus they would be no affront to Quondanapu who, as scripture makes clear, limited His/Her creation to our home world, and all the people originating on that world. When away from our worlds, we are no doubt equal. When on our world, you are no doubt inferior, as our people are when upon yours, but verminhood is not your permanent state.”

“I see,” I said again.

“One will take you to observe the Perfection of Appearance. It is a worthy thing to do.”

The following day, she did indeed escort me to a large building in the center of the nearest city. In a central room of that place, on a high throne, sat one of the Quondan, quite naked, showing that it had both male and female attributes.

“Such are born from time to time,” said the Quondana. “One bearing all the attributes of Quondanapu. They grow up to sit in the heart of our cities, a symbol of our image in truth.”

I heard a hissing behind me and turned to see a small crowd of Quondans pointing at me. The Quondana I was with spoke to them harshly, and they went away, not before I had heard the translated conversation.

“Why is this vermin allowed in the holy precinct? Who is she who brings vermin here?”

“This is a being from another planet, with another god, in whose image she is made. She is vermin, true, but she is acceptable vermin!”

When we had gone outside, I asked, “Why am I acceptable vermin?”

“Caaa. We have been gratified in meeting the Earthers, yes, for your own scripture and actions are in accord with ours. You also have a militancy upon your world that is vigilant in destroying other intelligences. A human person called Moore, who has named his militancy, In God's Image…”