Again, Dangerous Visions Part 84

"It's what they were, Seoul," he said patiently, arranging his dove-gray cuffs.

"Did they look like that? All gray and shiny? Is that why you wear-"

He turned on her, chunky gray-covered boy, hot eyes in a still face.

"I wear these to conceal my hideous Human body," he said tightly. "So I won't make myself sick. Compared to them I was a-a Crot. So are you."

"Oh-h-h-h-"

His face softened.

"If you could have seen them, Seoul. Tall as smoke, and they were always in music, with...something you can't imagine. We haven't-" He stopped tugging at his gray gloves, shuddered. "Fairer than all the children of men," he said painfully.

She hugged herself, eyes narrowed.

"But they're dead, Timor. Dead! You told me."

He went rigid, turned away from her with his hand on his gray slipper.

"How could there be better than Humans?" she persisted. "Everyone knows there's only Humans and Crots. I don't think it's your crotty Paradise at all, I think-"

He wrenched at the privacy lock.

"Timor, wait! Timor?"

The sound that was not his name followed him into the bright corridors, his feet carrying him blindly on the dry hardness. Fight to breathe evenly, to control the fist that shook him from within.

When he slowed he saw that he was in a part of this station still strange to him. But they were all alike, all like hospital and Trainworld. Parched prisms.

An aged she-Crot wheeled by, grinning vacuously, trailing skin. His stomach churned again at the red scurf. The local Crots were high-grade, equivalent to Human morons. Caricatures. Subhumans Subhumans. Why let them in the stations?

A drone warned him of the air plant ahead and he veered away, pa.s.sed a flasher: HUMANS ONLY. Beyond it was the playroom where he had met Seoul. He found it empty, jagged with rude games and mechanical throats. What the lords of the Galaxy called music. So jealous of their ugliness. He pa.s.sed the U4 bar, grimaced, and heard water splashing.

It drew him powerfully. There had been water on Paradise...such water...he came into the station pool.

Two heads shot out of the water, tossed black hair.

"Heyo, the newboy!"

He stared at the wetness, the olive boy-flesh.

"He flows! Come on in, newboy!"

For a moment he held aloof, a gray-clad stranger. Then his body prodded and he stripped again, showed the hateful dry pink.

"Heyo, he really flows!"

The water was clear and wrong but he felt better.

"Ottowa," one boy told him.

"Hull." They were twins.

"Timor," he lied, rolling, sluicing in the wet. He wanted-wanted- Olive hands on his legs in the bubbling.

"Good?"

"In the water," he said thickly. They laughed.

"Are you sub? Come on."

He flushed, saw it was a joke and followed them.

The pool cube was dim and moist and it was almost good. But their flesh grew greasy-hot and presently he could not do what they wanted.

"He flows nowhere," the one called Ottowa said.

"You don't-" They were busy with each other. Aching, undrained, he said furiously, "Humans! Ugly nullhead Humans. You don't know what flowing is."

They stared at him now, too startled for anger.

"Where are you you from, newboy?" Ottowa asked. from, newboy?" Ottowa asked.

It was no use, he shouldn't have.

"From Paradise," he said wearily, pulling on gray silk.

They exchanged looks.

"There's no such planet."

"There is," he said. "There is. There was." And went out head averted into the bright wastes. Stilling his face, straightening the short tree of his spine. When would he be in s.p.a.ce, allowed simply to do his job? The mindless immensities, the empty stars. Better. Weave a circle round him thrice and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed and drunk- Weave a circle round him thrice and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed and drunk- A hand fell on his shoulder from behind.

"So you're the Crot nurseling."

The old fury lashed him round, fists ready. His eyes went up.

Into dream. He stood gaping his unbelief. But then he saw that the thin black face above his own was Human. Human, not much older than he. But cloud-lean, ghost-graceful, like- "I'm Santiago. Work to do. Follow me, Crotty."

Old habit drove his fist, automatically his throat said, "My-name-is-Timor."

The dark one twisted lightly, the blow palmed on his shoulder. Contemptuous G.o.d-grin.

"Pax, pax." Black velvet voice. "Timor, son of the late great Scout Timor. My father's compliments and will you get your a.s.s into the scouter I'm taking out. Sector D needs it as of yesterday and we're short-handed. Your specs say you know how."

Santiago. His father must be the fat brown stationchief who had greeted him yesterday. How could such a sire- "Apprentice cert," his voice was saying.

Santiago nodded and went away without looking back to see that Timor followed.

The scouter was new and of the same model Timor had CRd on. Numbly he moved through the out-system transjection routine, parroting the checks, not daring to look closely at the long figure in the command console.

When they were set to first transit Santiago turned to him.

"Still freaked?"

Timor kept his eyes from the dark magnets.

"Seoul told me a little. I shouldn't have said that, obviously no Crot could raise a man."

"My father. Wasted me too long. His dear old chum-scout Timor's son, saved from the aliens. Your father and mine s.p.a.ced together-you'll get all that when you're back. He thinks you're Scout Timor reincarnated. He asked for you, you know."

"Yes," Timor got out.

The eyes studied him, hooded.

"It's a good thing he did. Your specs are a little strange."

"What do you mean?"

"All that sycounsel was. I expect they had to work you over completely completely. How old were you when you were found?"

"Ten," said Timor absently. "What were you doing with my- with my-"

"Don't freak. Man going out wants to know who's with him, fair?...Ten years with-all right, I won't say it. But if they weren't Crots, what were they? Crots is all we know."

Timor drew breath. If he could somehow touch understanding without words. But he was so tired.

"They were not Crots," he told the smoke-thin face. "Compared to them..." He turned away.

"You don't want to talk."

"No."

"Too bad," said Santiago lightly. 'We could use a super race.' "

In silence they worked through the transit-change, set the main course parameters and secondary checks. Then Santiago stretched, moved to the lockers.

"Might as well relax and eat now, next transit's not for an hour. Then we can sleep." With odd, archaic ceremoniousness he opened their food.

Timor realized he was very hungry. And from behind his gut, stabs of a deeper hunger. It seemed good to eat thus with another Human, intimately coc.o.o.ned in abyssal s.p.a.ce. Always before he had been the monitored pupil. Now...

He stiffened, summoned scorn.

"U4?".

"No."

"Try some of this, then. Station's best, I boosted it. You must not have had much rest since you came off Trainworld."

It was true. Timor took the proffered bulb.

"Where is Sector D?"

"Out toward Deneb. Six transits. They're opening three new systems and we're trying to keep it all supplied."

They talked a little then, about the station and the weird encapsulated life of Trainworld. Despite himself, Timor felt knots in perilous thaw.

"Music?"

Santiago caught his unguarded wince.

"That wastes you? Your aliens had better music, true?"

Timor nodded.

"They had cities?"

"Oh yes."

"Real cities? Like Mescalon?"

"More beautiful. Different. With many musics," he said painfully.

The dark face watched him.

"Where are they now?"

"In Paradise." Timor shook his head tiredly. "I mean, the planet was called Paradise. But they're all dead. The scouts who found me had a disease."

"Bad."

There was a pause. Then Santiago said musingly, "There's a spool of planets called paradise something or somebody's paradise. You wouldn't happen to know the coordinates?"

Alarms clattered in Timor's head.

"No!"

"Oh, you must have been told."

"No, no! I forgot. They never-"

"Maybe we could hype you," Santiago smiled.

"No!"

The effort jerked him loose from his stay. As he caught himself clumsily he noticed that the cabin seemed very small, with curious haloes.