Part 40 (1/2)
”Yeah. I carried you up and projected us here, and the folks understood. They were great! But why didn't Tamme Two come down and finish you off for sure?”
”She should have. I think, at the end, it must have bothered her to kill herself -- even her alternate self. I know I had little stomach for it. So she pulled her shot, just a little, and left it to nature. Perhaps she is further along the way to becoming normal -- like me -- than we supposed. The odds were still against my survival.”
”I guess they were! If the fog people hadn't taken us in and brought their doctor -- you should have seen him putting in st.i.tches with that nose, no human hand could match it -- well, I wouldn't have wished it on you, but I'm glad I got to meet Bunny.”
”Who?”
He didn't answer. Her perceptions were back to norm; she could read the pa.s.sing trauma that shook him, the realization that Bunny -- and all that she implied -- had been suppressed.
”We can't stay here any longer,” Tamme said.
”Right,” he said heavily. ”You have a mission. Got to get back to Earth and report.”
She read the resignation in him. He knew he was giving her up -- yet his conscience forced it. But there was one thing he didn't know.
”I do remember -- some,” she said.
”Don't play with me!” he snapped. ”I don't want an act!”
”You wanted the moon.”
”I knew I couldn't have it.”
”You preserved my life. This will not be forgotten.”
”Why not?” he muttered. ”The computer will erase it, anyway.”
They returned to the fog house.
She activated the projector, and they were at the bazaar.
Crowds milled everywhere, surging past the multi-leveled display stalls. Human, near-human, far-human, and alien mixed without concern, elbows jostling tentacles, shoes treading the marks of pincer-feet. Eyeb.a.l.l.s stared at antennae; mouths conversed with ventricles. Frog-eyed extraterrestrials bargained for humanoid dolls, while women bought centaur tails for brooms. Machines of different species mixed with the living creatures, and walking plants inspected exotic fertilizers: horse manure, bat guano, processed sewer sludge.
”Hey -- there's a manta!” Veg cried, waving.
But it was an alien manta, subtly different in proportion and reaction, and it ignored him.
They walked among the rest, looking for the projector. Then Tamme's eye caught that of a man: a terrestrial agent of a series closely akin to hers.
He came over immediately. ”Oo gest stapped in? Mutings ot wavorium.” He indicated the direction and moved on.
Veg stared after him. ”Wasn't that Taler?”
”Possibly. SU, TA, or TE series, certainly -- but not from our frame.”
”I guess not,” he agreed, shaking his head. ”Sounded like you and that machine-hive chitchat. Hey -- this is a good place to leave that lentil!”
”True,” she agreed. She took it out and flipped it into a bag of dragonfly-crabs, one of which immediately swallowed it.