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“Did he have a beautiful tail?”

  “It was thin and mangy.”

  “Was my mother beautiful?”

  “No Human is beautiful.”

  “Do I look like my father?”

  “You father had a tail.”

  That was all I knew about them. My mother was a whore and my father a fool with a thin tail. As I grew older, I discovered that my parents were criminals because crossbreeding, then as now, was an act forbidden by law on both sides. I was born in a detention center. My mother was ridiculed and scorned by peoples on both sides. Segregated and alone, my mother and I lived in the prolie slums of the Galaxia Capital after we got out of prison. Until I went to the orphanage, I thought I must be the only cross-breed freak in the galaxy. It was in the orphanage that I first saw other outcasts like myself.

  “Your mothers, if they were Human,” said the Keepers, “were ashamed of your ears and tails, for those of you born with them. If your mothers were Zentadon, they were equally ashamed of taillessness and nakedness of hair. Your mothers covered up your heads and would not let you be seen in public. You were all ugly and are still ugly. You simply cannot be half this and half that.”

  “But what are we to do if we cannot be half this and half that but are half this and half that?” I asked when I was older.

  “Some day there will be laws to euthanize babies who are born half this and half that.”

  “Kill us!”

  “It is the merciful thing to do. You can never fit into either world. You are despised and mistrusted on the one side because you are half the other side, and you are equally mistrusted and despised on the other side for the same reason.”

  My hand paused in its stroking of Pia’s hair. In the dark or with your eyes closed, it was difficult to tell the difference between Pia and, for example, Mina Li, except, of course, for Mina Li’s hyperactive tail. Pussy, Ferret crudely remarked once, is all the same in the dark.

  What Pia and I were doing was illegal because of my Zentadon blood. By the same token, Mina Li and I, should we conjoin, were equally felonious due to my Human side, even though the Zentadon were more tolerant of mixed-breeds than Humans. One drop of Zentadon blood, it was assumed among the Earthlings, made a Dirty Zentadon out of you. You and your offspring into all future generations were tainted.

  When I was old enough to leave the orphanage, I went in search of my genetic roots. The pursuit led me to Prolie Town and a Human by the name of Bobo Wilkest.

  “My sister might have been the bitch that whelped you,” he said, “but you are no blood of mine, no tail or not.”

  “Please,” I begged. “Tell me about her. I need to know.”

  “She screwed a Zentadon.”

  “Was she exclusive?”

  Bobo Wilkest laughed lewdly. “Your mother was exclusive to lots of men … and to some animals.”

  “But she was only sixteen-years old when I was born.”

  “She had a snatch a lot older than that.”

  “Where is she now? Can you tell me?”

  “She was transported back to Earth to live with the mutants as punishment for her lifestyle. That’s the last we’ve heard of her. She could be dead now for all we know or care.”

  There was little glamour in my Human ancestral origins unless you somehow considered slum prolie whores charming. I was left with one Bobo phrase to sum up my mother’s sordid existence. She could suck the brass off a brass doorknob. It was a hell of a legacy. It was many years before I knew what that meant.

  So I wasn’t a lost prince, at least not on my Human side. I expected my Zentadon genealogy to be composed of finer, more noble stuff.

  My mother’s name was Alicianana Wilkest. My father was a hustler and part-time revolutionary called Kadar San Be. My mother had named me after him! Why would she do that if there were so many males conjoining her that she couldn’t remember their names?

  “Oh, she remembered his name all right,” I was assured by my father’s aunt, a dwarf-like ancient whose tail looked as scaly and worn as that of a space-dock rat. In fact, she could have passed for a rat if she were any smaller. “She attempted to murder him out of frustration. She conjoined the fluid out of him for nine days, day and night, and then the breeding season ended. She was screaming and pulling her hair out by the roots, saying how much she loved him. He could do nothing about it. The season of conjoining was over and your father went back to the Revolution. Your mother shot him with a cheap gun she obtained on the black market. He survived, but never saw her again. I do not think he ever saw you.”

  “My father fought in the Revolution? Impossible. That was centuries ago.”

  “Not the Great Revolution. He and that bunch of taa addict heads he ran with were always talking about a revolution of their own that would free Zentadon and return Ganesh solely to us. Your father, if he is your father, was a dreamer. Radical, charming, and a good orator, but a more worthless Zentadon being you could not imagine. His only outstanding quality was the Talent.”

  “He was a Sen?” I cried, pleased.

  “They did not call them Sens then. But he could read minds. He made credits that way.”

  “Where is he? I need to see him.”

  The scaly-tailed aunt mined her nose with her little finger. “He went to prison for conceiving you. He liked it so much that he went back for trying to blow up a Republic military space port. As far as I know, he is still in a penal colony somewhere on Ganesh. If you are finished asking your foolish questions, I would rather my neighbors not see me conversing with you. Reputation, you understand?”

  “I am sure your reputation is sterling and should not be soiled. Just two more questions.”

  She pulled her finger out of her nose and examined what she had caught.

  “Was my father’s tail skinny?” I asked.

  “Not as skinny as yours.” And she laughed uproariously.

  I crossed my fingers for luck.

  “Question number two: did he share a family resemblance with you?”

  That produced even more laughter. “No, no, no. He was the ugly member of the clan.”

  No lost prince on this side either. The Keepers were right. I was descended from a whore in one lineage and an ugly fool in the other. The only beneficial qualities I inherited were the Talent from my father and intelligence from somewhere else back there. I used both to forge a career in military academia. Fear of invasion by the Blobs, who communicated telepathically, was producing a demand for Zentadon Sens. There was even talk of making us officers.

  I began stroking Pia’s hair again, very tenderly, and out of a deep sadness. In falling in romance with this beautiful Human female, might I not be promulgating the sins of my father? It was not fair to her, much less legal. Sooner or later, if we survived, it was something we had to deal with.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FORTY SEVEN

  Elf?”

  Blade’s voice on the radio sounded a little too strained, a bit stretched. Pia gave a little jump. I pulled her closer to reassure her. I noted the growing desperation in the tone of the sniper’s voice.

  “Time is running out, elf.”

  It wasn’t yet light enough to move. I checked through the waterfall, then popped back inside, shaking water off the dirty makeshift head rag that covered my hair.

  “Is it still raining?” Pia asked.

  I looked at her.

  “Foolish question,” she acknowledged.

  “Elf, maybe we can still pull a deal. You’ll never make it with the cunt. She’ll hold you back.”

  “The deal,” I radioed in reply, “is the same as before; you give up your weapons and submit to being our prisoner. We all go aboard the pod. We all survive.”

  “For what? So I can be charged with killing this bunch of self-righteous cowards who were supposed to be a DRT team? Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “I do.”

  “I’m not crazy enough for that.”

  “You are being used by a force stronger tha
n you, Sergeant Kilmer.”

  “There is no force that strong on this planet.”

  “I can prove it if you will allow me.”

  He hesitated. His steel door opened a crack and I felt his uncertainty. I hurried to get in before he blocked it again. I crammed images through the temporarily-opened door of his mind. I reminded him of the insane laughter, the destruction of the bots, how team members went at each other’s throats when the Presence appeared, how we were led to the Indowy box.

  “You are a soldier, Sergeant Kilmer. You are tough, mean as sin, to coin an old, old Earth expression, you are bigoted, nasty and greedy, and you were used the last time you were here as well as this time.”

  Maybe I was stretching things a bit, but I had to give him a way out by not specifically mentioning murder.

  “Remember how everything was just before you threw the neural grenade? Gorilla and Ferret were fighting. They were the best of friends. They never fought like that. Atlas was wanting to lynch Sergeant Gunduli and me. Does that sound like the DRT-bags under normal circumstances? Under normal circumstances, would you have thrown a grenade among them?”

  For a billion credits or so he would have thrown one at his own mother. That was why the Presence selected him.

  Voices through the squad radios sounded tinny and amplified. I worked to make mine come out controlled and reasonable.

  “What is this force you’re talking about?” Blade asked, as though wavering.

  Pia squeezed my hand.

  “I do not know the full story,” I admitted. “It is a Presence and it is evil. Its goal is to release the Indowy curse in the box into the galaxy. Of that I am certain. It will use any means possible.”

  Blade remained silent, but I still felt him, less malevolent, up there in the rocks among the dead team members. That was a positive sign.

  “Blade, you were here before. What happened?”

  “Nothing happened,” he snapped, too quickly.

  “You were the only survivor,” I reminded him.

  “I was very young.” Defensively. “It was my first expedition away from Galaxia.”

  Blade may not have been ready for the Presence the first time; this time he was.

  “What happened to your other team, Sergeant Kilmer?”

  There was a long silence over the radio. Through the static I heard a hoarse whisper, like it came from deep inside an inflamed throat. I cringed in spite of myself. Pia stiffened next to me in the cave.

  Begone!

  Begone?

  “Fu-uck,” Blade said suddenly. I was losing him. I felt him hardening.

  “I didn’t kill them all, if that’s what you’re implying,” Blade growled. “They … they killed each other.”

  The horror that ran through his body echoed in mine.

  “Then … then the critters got the others,” he added. “All except me.”

  “What about Stanto?” I pressed.

  I felt him narrowing. “What about Stanto?”

  “You dumped his body off a cliff.”

  “He was already dead. But so what if I killed him? So what if I killed them all? What difference does it make now?”

  “It makes a difference because you are back, Blade. The Presence has patience to wait. The same thing happened this time, the same way as before. It is using you again.”

  Blade mulled that over. “How did you find out about Stanto?” he asked suspiciously.

  I was getting to him, making him unsure of himself. I could feel it. If there was one thing Blade was certain to resent, it was the idea that he wasn’t always in control of himself and his environment.

  Begone!

  “Sergeant Kilmer, Gun Maid and myself will both testify on your behalf if you give yourself up …”

  Begone! Begone! Begone!

  I felt the coiling of something slimy inside Blade’s soul. His mind slammed shut. The little radio in my hand began to sizzle. I flung it out of the cave, through the curtain of the waterfall. Just in time. It exploded with a sharp bang.

  Hideous laughter snuffled and snorted in the darkness outside.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  FORTY EIGHT

  It never lets up,” Pia complained weakly, meaning the rain. “He never lets up. Kadar San, I’m holding you back. Go on without me.”

  “Where would I go? Only you can open the pod.”

  That should have ended the discussion.

  “Sergeant Shiva said no one alive was to be left behind,” I continued, helping her negotiate a small stream running around tree roots. Rather, we helped each other, for both of us were about done for. “Besides, I added in a lighter tone, “it is almost the Zentadon breeding season.”

  That almost made her giggle, but she didn’t have the strength for it. She made only a single small sound. How I would like to hear her giggle again.

  “If we were exclusive,” she asked when we reached the top of an incline and looked back through the rain, “would we make love only once a year for nine days?”

  “Of course not,” I exclaimed. “I am half-Human. Eighteen days.”

  “Once a year for eighteen days?”

  “Ten times a day for eighteen days.”

  “Kadar San, are you pulling my leg?”

  I looked puzzled. Then I got it. “An old, old Earth expression?”

  “Jerking my chain. Floating my bucket.” She was on a roll.

  “You need rest,” I noticed, easing her to sit on a large moss-covered stone.

  “So do you, Kadar San.”

  “I was so happy when I heard you in my mind, Pia. I could have almost kissed you in my mind.”

  “It isn’t as good in your mind as the real thing.”

  She leaned toward me, her brown face streaming rain from her cropped black hair. Her blue eyes melted into mine. She closed her eyes and gave me a long and tender kiss. My ears twitched. She put her hands over them and giggled softly into my mouth.

  “Does this mean you are putting your tail over my shoulder?” I asked.

  “The left shoulder,” she said. “When do the eighteen days begin?”

  “When we reach the landing pod,” I replied. That sobered us. She stiffened.

  I felt her stiffen an instant before she cried out. “Kadar San!”

  I looked in the direction she indicated. A wide basin savannah opened toward the northeast. Several scattered herds of the Goliath beetles browsed in the tall purple grass while dragonflies soared above, scavenging. Halfway across the clearing moved Blade, purposefully bent on inserting himself between us and the black river — and succeeding. His chameleons were either malfunctioning or he had turned them off to conserve energy for when he really needed concealment. At this range, he held no fear of me and my Punch Gun.

  A bolt of lightning blasted from horizon to horizon, all the way across the gray-black dome of sky. Blade halted. His helmet looked like a bubble attached to his shoulders. He stared directly at us on the incline. Then he turned and looked to his left.

  There were the lizards, moving in and out of the trees, stalking Blade, five yard intervals between them in good military style. Feeling Blade’s eyes on them, somehow sensing his intent, they instantly melted into the terrain. These were intelligent beasts; I would not like being on a recon and surveillance team returning to Aldenia if the lizards were provided a few hundred more generations of evolution.

  “They never let up either,” Pia said, her voice thin with fear but trying to cover it. “All we need to have a real party are the Blobs. Did you forget to invite them, honey?”

  “I am afraid they may be invited to another party – on Galaxia,” I said.

  “And we have no way of warning people until …” She caught herself. “Until we get to the pod, or until the pod leaves without us.”

  Down on the grasslands, Blade disappeared into his activated chameleons. That answered my question. He was conserving energy. Confused, the lizards stepped cautiously into the opening, walking on their hind leg
s, cocking their heavy heads from side to side, testing the air, snapping their mighty teeth-laden jaws. The chameleons masked scent as well as sight. To the lizards, it must have seemed their intended prey simply vanished.

  They looked in our direction. We were still visible and present. Disregarding the now-disappeared Human, the pack of reptiles dropped to all fours and made etch-a-sketch lines in the tall dark grass as they headed across the meadow directly at us.

  “We have to run!” Pia screamed, lurching to her feet in near-panic, pulling on my sleeve.

  “We cannot outrun them,” I said, not meaning to be fatalistic, only realistic. “They are not looking for food. They seek revenge. But they are smart. They will not charge us head on. They will attempt to ambush us from hiding.”

  Pia’s eyes widened so it was almost like she disappeared into them. In the open, we became easy targets for Blade’s reach-out-and-touch-someone Gauss rifle. In the forest, we fell prey to the avenging lizards. That left what? The sky?

  Where the grasslands ended and rainforest began, the lizards split off toward the north. It was almost like they knew our route of march as well as Blade did and intended to cut us off. Pia grasped my arm with both hands, breathing hard. I drew my Punch Gun and checked its supply of ammunition. There were five lizards left and one Human sniper. I had four firing rounds remaining. I looked at Pia. She read my mind.

  “Blade took all our weapons when he thought we were dead,” she apologized. “I don’t even have ammunition. Kadar San, are we going to die?”

  “All things die; but not in this Dark Place.”

  I don’t believe you.

  You must believe if you would survive.

  Pia gave a start. “What was that?”

  “You heard it!” I exclaimed. “That’s the GP, the Good Presence.”

  “Oh, Lord. This place is populated with things both seen and unseen.”

  You have described life, said the GP.

  The fanger appeared in my mind, the warning sign of danger. Almost instantaneously, I felt the elation and cruel excitement Blade always projected just before he squeezed the trigger. I dived for Pia and brought her down. A bullet seized the air where we had been standing. Thunder muted the report of the distant rifle.