Trang (29 page)

“Please satisfy your people’s natural
curiosity,” said Ptuk-Ptik. “I am accustomed to such questions because of my
many conversations with Infant.”

This will seem normal then,
Philippe
reassured himself.

“Can Hosts change color, or glow?”

“As the Magic Man does? No, we
cannot.”

Philippe bit his lip.
I hope
this doesn’t sound crazy,
he thought.

“Are you—are you telepathic?”

Ptuk-Ptik looked at him, puzzled.
“I do not think that translated correctly. Do we know thoughts? We know our
thoughts.”

“No, I mean—”
How to put this,
Philippe
wondered.

Then an idea occurred to him. “You
know that we have a lot of fiction among our people about aliens. And often in
our fiction, the aliens have mental abilities. And I don’t mean the ability to reason
or to build, which of course you have, but very special abilities that my
people do not have, such as the ability to know the thoughts in another
person’s mind or the ability to put thoughts into another person’s mind. Not by
speaking or anything, but just by projecting those thoughts there.”

Ptuk-Ptik looked surprised. “That
is a novel concept. We may discover other people’s thoughts through
conversation and observation, and may influence them by our words and actions,
but I do not believe that is your meaning.”

“You are correct,” said Philippe.
“I am speaking of a simple action of will, a special power or ability to—we say
to read minds, but to know the thoughts of others or to control the thoughts of
others directly with the mind.”

“I cannot think of any person who
can do that,” said the Host. “Except—but this is not exactly similar to that of
which you speak.”

“What is it?”

“The Magic Man, when he is in
pieces, and his pieces are in different places, he appears to know what happens
to all his pieces. But you are suggesting that one person could know the
thoughts of another person, while the Magic Man is all one person.”

“How does he do
that?
” asked
Philippe.

The three Hosts immediately began
speaking energetically, talking over each other, while Ptuk-Ptik occasionally
said things like, “It is very unfortunate” and “I am aware that your position
is unenviable.”

Finally the talked died down. “Why
are they upset?” asked Philippe.

“He wants to know why you are
upset,” Ptuk-Ptik told the merchant. “I neglected to repeat your comments to
them, and since they lack translation gear, they could not understand you.”

The merchant piped in.

“He wants me to point out that it
is not only that they cannot understand you, they cannot understand any of the
aliens, and since they work with the Snake Boys, this is a considerable
handicap for them,” said the Host.

“Why don’t they have translation
gear?” asked Philippe.

“He wants to know why you do not
have translation gear,” said Ptuk-Ptik, eliciting yet another flurry of
unintelligible and heated comments from the three Hosts before he turned back
to Philippe. “There is a shortage of translation gear, and as a result, such
gear is limited to the members of priesthoods. These are not priests, although
I agree that since they provide necessary provisions to another people, they
perform priest-like work.”

“Well,” said Philippe, “if there’s
a shortage, I believe that we have some extra Host translation gear.”

Ptuk-Ptik looked shocked, and then
excited. “If it would not offend you to answer this question: How did you come
to posses such gear?”

“It was a present from your
people,” said Philippe. “We were given several, and I think the doctor could
probably part with three.”

The merchant said something to
Ptuk-Ptik, who replied, “He is offering you the use of some translation gear
his people were given as a gift from the Hosts.”

So Philippe, the four Hosts, and
the two soldiers headed back to the human living area. Ptuk-Ptik said that, if
the translation gear was operable, he could just put it on the other three
Hosts himself, so Philippe left them all outside and went to see George.

“Am I at least getting an
examination out of this?” asked the doctor, as he sealed the gear into a bag
with some reluctance.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I got sidetracked,”
Philippe said. “I’ll check on that.”

He carried the gear out into the
common area. Ptuk-Ptik looked at the devices and said they should be useable.
Philippe broke the seal and Ptuk-Ptik took one of the devices and carefully
tucked it into the joint of the merchant’s left forelimb.

The cafeteria was transformed.

There were streamers everywhere,
and everyone was wearing colorful paper hats and cheering.

“
What’s going on?” Philippe
asked Baby.

“
Don’t you remember? It’s
Patch’s birthday!”

“
That’s right,” said Philippe,
laughing at his lapse in memory. After all, he was wearing a hat, too, and
carrying a paper horn. “Happy birthday, Patch!” he whooped.

“
Philippe! Guy!” exclaimed
Patch. “Have a seat! Dinner’s almost ready!”

Philippe sat—there was a china
plate and silver before him. Somebody put down a mug of beer by his plate, then
someone else handed him some sausages.

The sausages were excellent—warm
and spicy, they had a slightly tough skin so that they burst into your mouth
when you bit into them.

Philippe took a drink of the
beer. It was rich and flavorful, hearty and complex.

“
This is so good,” he said.

“
Look at the cake,” said Bubba,
pointing over his shoulder.

Philippe looked. There was a
massive black forest cake, with white glossy frosting and big red cherries
heaped on top.

“
Do you want some potatoes?”
asked Bubba.

“
Absolutely,” Philippe replied,
piling them onto his plate.

“
Uh. Hi, Philippe,” said a voice
behind him.

There was that glowing Host
again.

“
Do you see that?” Philippe
asked Bubba.

“
See what?” Bubba replied.

“
That glowing Host,” Philippe
said.

“
He’s not real,” said Bubba.
“Hosts can’t glow. And he’s not the right color. They can’t change color,
either.”

“
Philippe, I am real,” said the
Host. “I need your help. I need to you talk to me.”

“
Maybe it’s the Magic Man
playing a joke,” said Sucre, sitting across the table with a beer in his hand.

“
I’m not the Magic Man. I don’t
even know who the Magic Man is,” said the Host.

“
He’s kind of irritable,” said
Bubba.

“
That’s because you’re not
listening to me!” said the Host. “Half the time, you won’t even let me speak!”

Philippe stood up. “Let’s talk
outside.”

“
I want to talk here.”

“
No, this is a party. I think we
should talk outside.”

“
We’re not leaving this room,”
said the Host. “Every time we leave a room we wind up—oh, hell.”

“
I’m sorry,” said Philippe, as
the room became silent.

The guards arrived.

“
I can’t move, Philippe,” said
the Host. “You’ve got to make it so that I can move.”

“
I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said
Philippe. The SFers were gone, all gone, he knew it without even looking
around. There was no one to help, no help at all.

“
I’m sorry,” he said.

One of the guards picked up a
steak knife from the table and plunged it suddenly into the Host’s side. He
twisted it as the Host shrieked.

“
Wait,” said another guard,
obviously some kind of commander. He had a half-dozen steak knives in his hand.
He passed them out to the guards. “Shallow cuts,” he said.

They smiled and formed a circle
around the Host. They began singing a hymn and slicing the Host. They sang
about the love of Jesus and made long sinuous cuts on the alien’s sides and
back.

“
Please, stop this Philippe,”
said the Host. He was covered in a glaze of blood

“
I’m sorry,” said Philippe,
shivering with his arms wrapped around himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m
sorry.”

“
Stop!” shouted the commander.
The guards stopped and backed away from the Host. The commander walked up. He
had two bottles in each hand.

Philippe gasped. They were
filled with brandy, four bottles of plum brandy.

“
I’m sorry,” Philippe said, as
the commander poured the brandy over the Host’s cuts. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry.”

The shrieking went on for a long
time. Finally it stopped.

“
You will burn in hell,
unbeliever,” said the commander. His men began to stomp rhythmically on the
floor.

The commander lit a match.

Someone was pounding on Philippe’s office door, waking him
up.
God, I need more sleep,
he thought, and then shivered. Sleep brought
dreams. . . .

It took a moment to calm her down
enough to get the whole story. Philippe had gotten permission from the Hosts to
have the doctor examine a volunteer, and Baby had insisted on asking Ptuk-Ptik
first.

“I didn’t see none of him yesterday
or the day before, so I thought that maybe he was on one of them retreats,” she
said. “But today I ran into that merchant we gave the translator to, and he
said Ptuk-Ptik got into trouble because of it. He’s back on their planet, and
they’re gonna put him on trial! We gotta help him!”

“Absolutely,” said Philippe. He
pulled a jacket from his closet and slapped the mike. “Entourage. This is
Trang. I need to go out
right now
.”

“I’m going with you,” said Baby.
She had a slightly desperate gleam in her eye.

“Let me check it out first,” said
Philippe, putting on his gloves. He stopped for a moment and grabbed a
stimulant patch out of his desk, sticking it to his right forearm. He was going
to need the energy. “You stay here for now, and let me see if it’s as bad as it
sounds.”

“Trang! You coming?” It was Ofay at
the door. Five-Eighths stood beside him.

“I’ll let you know what I find out
as soon as I find out, OK?” he said, patting Baby’s shoulder.

He and the soldiers went up to the
level where the Hosts lived and started scanning the café area—half the time,
whoever you wanted to meet was hanging out there. “I see Max,” Five-Eighths’
voice spoke in Philippe’s ear. “He’s alone.”

“Entourage, I see him,” said
Philippe, as he walked over to where Five-Eighths was standing. “This is
probably pretty sensitive, so I’d like you two to hang back. I don’t want him
to feel threatened.”