“We are connoisseurs of emotions. We will record yours and hers and enjoy them over and over again. This costs you nothing. The more your enjoyment, the keener our pleasure; the more pain she suffers, the more piquant the counterpoint. The Creator made you and the humans to contend forever.”
I walked to where Lady Susan was hanging. She was conscious.
“Hello,” I said. “Nice to see you again.”
She spat at me; her aim was fine. “Slime! I will not lower myself to beg for mercy. See how a human dies.”
“I need a sharp knife, about this long,” I said, holding my paws out. “My claws are not sufficient for what I want to do.” The alien smiled and soon I was holding a beautiful blade. I reached up left, then right, and cut the bonds holding Lady Susan. Then I cut her feet free.
The alien, who had been silent, snarled, “What are you doing?”
“Cutting her loose. Now, if we can have her clothing, we’ll be leaving.”
“This is not permitted.”
“You said I could do with her as I chose. I choose to set her free.” I found that the aliens could transmit emotions as well as receive them. It started as just pain—an ache in all my teeth. A crescendo of pain that transformed as my joints exploded. I was put into a locked iron box; the walls started pressing in even as they became red- and then white-hot. I had to get out, get the key, unlock the box. The pain eased.
“This is only a sample of what we can do. Yield. Perform. Pleasure can be yours, not pain. Join with us.” And a wave of undiluted pleasure racked me. It was worse than the pain because some of the horror was from within. “Will you consent?”
Consent was important; they could not force me. They could torture me and could tempt me, but the final decision would be mine. I tried to resist, but what weapons did I have? Use your personal imagination. That was the message through the computer. Did it mean anything? The alien drew back. It meant something.
I had a breathing space. I would have to fight back with my mind; use my imagination to counter the pain. I went through a sequence of battles from my CR readings—giant spaceships with ravening lances of energy, long- range ray guns in a post-civilized culture, magic swords to destroy demons, amulets to protect against monsters that lived between dimensions. My mind created the ability to conquer the alien with mind power.
There was a colorless flash, and then nothing. I awoke to see both the alien and Lady Susan were slumped on the floor. I put the knife in my belt. Lady Susan was unconscious but breathing. I didn’t check the alien because I didn’t care.
I tried to dress Lady Susan in my outerwear but gave up. It’s harder to dress a female than to undress one. I tore down a wall hanging, cut off a strip for a belt, rolled Lady Susan into it, and tied it off. It lacked style, but I thought it would serve. I half-carried, half-dragged her back into the area in which I had first awakened and then out a portal into the light.
I was in Trapelo Sector and I needed to get both of us back to the ship, fast. I knew where we were and I knew where the ship was, but I didn’t know how to get from here to there. There were transport modules, but my kidnappers had emptied my pockets and Lady Susan didn’t have any pockets.
I saw a communications kiosk down the corridor, and carried her into it, closing the door behind us. It was clearly not designed for two. There was access to emergency services, but it cost; nothing is free here. But thankfully there was the equivalent of a reverse charge call.
A watch officer agreed to pay for 15 seconds—more out of boredom than anything else. His Lobote jaws opened in surprise as my face appeared on his screen. “You? What do you mean by…”
“Quiet. Me. Lady Susan. Trapelo Sector. Send help fast.” And the screen went blank. I turned to open the door. There was a crowd outside armed with knives. (Actually, there were only five of them, but five was enough of a crowd for me.) I held the door shut as the largest moved forward to pry it open. I concentrated on keeping the door shut. I was losing. I took out my knife, pulled the door instead of pushing, had the satisfaction of seeing the large one fall down. I jumped out and crouched into what I thought was a knife-fighter’s stance. In the stories I had read, the heroes get some sort of training in these things; someone had screwed up here. I invoked the epic heroes to help me, but this was not the mental combat I had just been in.
The fellow in the green dress leaped in and slashed at my left arm. I blocked most of this, but it caused a shallow cut that hurt. Blood started dripping down.
I stepped back and hit the kiosk and slipped. This saved me from another’s jab. The big guy had gotten up and yelled for his accomplices to step back. He took out a knife, balanced it in his hand, and threw it at me. Pain ripped through my left shoulder. Another knife and my right shoulder was pierced. I dropped my own blade as my arm convulsed. He was playing with me. “Dance around. Give me a challenge.”
I snarled something unpleasant about his family and their breeding habits. Some concepts are universal, for he stopped, took careful aim, and threw. Right in the gut.
My vision blurred; I heard noises; I fell unconscious to the ground.
I awoke flat on my back. I tried to get up and escape, but I was tied down. I was in a medical facility. Hoses were dripping things into my body. I hoped everything was proper for a vavacq but if it wasn’t there wasn’t much I could do about it. The medical people wouldn’t have gone to the trouble if they didn’t think it would work. I croaked out some noise. A Lobote came over. “Go back to sleep.” Something cold touched my skin. I went back to sleep.
I woke a number of times and slept a number of times. Once when I woke, the captain was there. “You did a good job saving Lady Susan. Your pay will not be debited for overstaying your leave. Return to duty as soon as possible.” It is nice to be appreciated. I went back to sleep. The medical connections had been removed. The medtech told me I would be able to leave tomorrow. The decks and tables must be getting dirty without me. I couldn’t imagine anyone else in the crew who could perform my tasks to the standards I had set.
I was lying in bed waiting for the medtech to kick me out when Lady Susan, back in ship’s uniform, came in. She looked down on me in my bunk. Whatever she was going to say was going to be difficult. “I was told what happened. There is an obligation between us,” she said. “You are vavacq slime, but there is a bond between us; this is intolerable.” She hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that, but her training and culture forced it upon her.
‘Think nothing of it. Glad to have been of help. You must have important work to do.”
“No. If you make light of this, you give no value to my life. This must be resolved; the bond must be severed. Tell me why you did as you did. You did not act as any other of your people would have. I cannot understand this. I would not have done this for you had our roles been reversed.”
“Maybe that’s why I did it. The cycles must be stopped.” That last popped out; I hadn’t intended to say it and I wasn’t quite sure I meant it.
She stared at me. “Of all the aliens I have ever met, you are the most alien of all.”
“I take that as a high compliment,” I said.
She turned and left without another word.
I turned onto my side and something poked me. The medtech must have forgotten to remove all the equipment. I reached down and picked it up. There in my paw was a silvery ring, but there was a break. One end pointed up—searching?
HI, COLONIC
by Harry Turtledove
SOME PEOPLE SAY probing other planets for intelligent life is an exciting, romantic job. As far as I’m concerned, that only goes to show they’ve never done it. Me, I do it for a living, and I’m here to tell you it’s nothing but a pain in the orifice. The air smells funny even when you can breathe it, the animals smell even worse (and taste worse than that, half the time), and even when we do find people, they’re usually backward as all get-out. If they weren’t, they would have found us, right? Right.
Another planet from space. If I’ve sensed one, I’ve sensed a thousand. Third planet from a medium-heat sun. Water oceans. Oxygen atmosphere. Life. Oh, joy. We weren’t even the first ones here. This place had been checked a bunch of times over the past fifty local years. Always nothing. So why did we go back again? Orders. If I don’t do the work, they don’t pay me. Even when I do do the work, they don’t pay me enough, but that’s a different
