There was a small table against the near wall, with a chair pushed out before it at an angle that suggested the human who sat it had just risen and walked away. Atop the table, a computer idled. Its processing unit and monitor might have come from any museum on Jota, and its keyboard, although too wide and with keys too small for Jotan hands, was easily recognizable as well. Tagen ran his eyes over the unfamiliar characters and symbols that faced the keys, then reached out and tapped one with a claw. The monitor blinked on at once, showing him the image of a rolling hill under an azure sky, as well as a number of unknowable icons.
The animal was rubbing frantically at his leg, making its urgent yowling plea and slapping at him with its soft paws. Tagen allowed himself to be distracted, and as soon as it had his attention, it turned and ran across the room, its round belly swaying at its knees.
The floor was tiled, and not quite empty. The animal had gone straight to a mat in the corner, where two bowls stood. One was half-filled with water. The other was empty, and it was there that the creature stood, making plaintive noises and lashing its long tail.
Tagen began to open cupboards. He found dishes, food packaging, and devices which, although unfamiliar in design, appeared to relate to the storing or preparation of food. He was in the kitchen. Once he was comfortable with that, he could almost see how the bulky appliances scattered among the cupboards might be used for cooking. His inspection was greatly curtailed, however, by the persistent attentions of the creature.
Tagen moved from shelf to shelf until he found a neat stack of tins that had images similar to the creature’s head printed on them. The pitch of the animal’s cries became more intense as soon as Tagen picked one of the tins up, and it ran over to rub on his ankles.
There was an obvious tab on the top of the tin. Tagen got a claw into it and pulled the tin open easily. The contents were mushy and unappealing, but the smell of meat was strong enough to make Tagen’s stomach clench hungrily. He was tempted to taste it, but the animal’s distress was growing to extreme levels, and so Tagen settled for shaking the stuff out into the empty dish on the floor. The animal dove in head-first, and Tagen stepped back to give it room. That was a
rurr’ga
all right, or the Earth version of it, at least.
Tagen left it eating. There was one door remaining unopened in this house and he wanted no surprises. His own hunger would have to wait.
The last door opened on a utility room of sorts, containing the large appliances and shelves for alien tools that a residence of this size required to be maintained. Like all the other rooms, excusing the one Tagen had chosen to enter through, it had been rigorously cleaned and tidied. Soiled clothing was contained in a sealed bin; building and repair materials were crated and neatly placed on shelves; there was even a long industrial table filled with potted plants, and not so much as a speck of dirt out of place. On the furthest wall was another door leading outside, and that was all there was to the house.
So. Many rooms, many chairs, two privies, but only one bed. Tagen deduced that the human he had seen leave this house was the sole inhabitant. An inhabitant with a great deal of empty time on its hands. ‘And,’ thought Tagen, looking around at all the blunt, heavy, and sharp objects the utility room contained, ‘a human with plenty of improvised weapons at hand.’
He’d better take care of that. Tagen returned to the front room, unshouldered his pack and set it on the low table. He removed the dermisprayer and slipped it into his belt where it was close at hand. Then, starting in the kitchen where the most obvious weapons were, he began to get ready for the human’s return.
*
He had nearly finished his second sweep through the house (taking everything he deemed even remotely dangerous up to the storage room, reasoning that it was already cluttered as hell) when he heard the human’s groundcar returning. Tagen hurried downstairs, the dermisprayer in his hand, and pressed himself to the wall beside the door, waiting.
The human never saw him coming. It stepped inside, its hands occupied with papers, its attention diverted, and Tagen merely reached out and injected it. The human’s head lifted, it started to turn, and then it just kept turning, dropping bonelessly to the floor at the same time.
Surprise provoked instinct; Tagen caught it without thinking. He held it awkwardly in his hands at arm’s length as its eyes rolled and its limbs splayed. The Human Studies scientist had called this a mild sedative? This didn’t look very mild to Tagen.
“I’ve killed it,” he said sourly. “Shit.”
The human moaned, its mouth moving, and managed to utter a badly-mangled attempt at “Shit,” in Jotan, no less.
Tagen’s brows raised. Switching to N’Glish, he said, “Human, can you hear me?”
The human’s feet tried to get under it, but it couldn’t quite manage. “I can hear you,” it said. Its voice was slow and dolorous, as though it were talking in its sleep.
Up close, he could see the human’s face was very smooth and there was something vaguely feminine about it. That meant nothing, really; as a whole, humans tended to have much softer features than Jotan, regardless of their gender. A cautious sniff gave him no further clues, but Tagen was inclined to think this one was female. It had the fleshy swellings on its chest that were usually, if not always, indicative of females. It would be easy enough to reach down and feel it out to be sure, but he didn’t. Even if the human were conscious, such an action would be tremendously crude, but in the state the human was in, Tagen felt slightly obscene even to have the thought.
He decided the time had come to make introductions. “My name is Tagen Pahnee,” he said.
The human did not reply. Then again, he hadn’t asked a question. “Tell me your name,” he ordered.
The human tried again to stand and this time, it made it. “Lindaria Cleavon,” it said, still in that slow, drugged tone. It rolled its eyes towards Tagen and stared at him without expression, swaying on its feet.
“Are you a female?” Tagen asked.
“Yep.” The human nodded at the same time, demonstrating that ‘yep’ was just another way of saying ‘yes.’
Tagen paced a few steps around her, willing himself to become easy in his mind. She was a small thing. Her head did not even come to his shoulder. And she was slender as a reed, her form so different from the muscled frame of a Jotan female. Her face, fine-boned and pale, had been sculpted to a delicate perfection; the left half had been ornamented by a fine interlace of white markings. Her hair, long and glossy and brown, rippled as she moved her head back and forth to watch him. She was smiling, a sleepy child’s smile, completely without comprehension.
“I am not going to hurt you,” he told her.
“You are not going to hurt me,” the human said, with great conviction.
“I have given you…” Tagen looked at his dermisprayer blankly, and then held it up for her to see. “What do you call a thing such as this that makes a human calm?”
“A sedative,” she said, without any hesitation.
Tagen echoed her, beginning to feel encouraged. This was going to work. He put the dermisprayer back into his belt and folded his arms, looking confidently down at her. “Tell me about your planet’s defense array,” he said.
The human merely looked at him.
All right, perhaps he hadn’t said that correctly. “Tell me about the way in which Earth repels off-world invasion,” he said.
The human’s chin drooped until it met her chest. She began to sink toward the floor.
Tagen stood her up again, scowling. “Tell me about Earth’s information and communications transferal devices,” he said.
“See en en,” said the human, which made absolutely no sense at all.
Tagen felt his lips thinning. “Tell me about the door,” he said darkly.
The human turned around, her eyebrows lifting with sluggish surprise. “That’s my door,” she said, and closed it.
As Tagen watched, she manipulated a series of switches and knobs set into the side of the door. “What did you just do?” he asked.
“I locked it. Now you can’t get in.” The human looked at him, weaving on her feet and beaming with pride.
“What would happen if I broke the lock?” Tagen asked.
The human considered the question. “Then it would be broken,” she said.
“Are there any other defenses? Sensors? Weapon triggers?”
“Nope. Just the lock.” The human frowned at him. “And you broke it.”
He opened his mouth to correct her, then gave up and took her shoulders, pointing her at the dark screen of the monitor. “What is that?”
“My tee-vee.”
“What does it do?”
“It brings piping hot platefuls of complete crap right into your living room and inundates you with commercials.” The human thought. “You can also play games and watch movies on it.”
Most of her words were totally unknown to him. He said, “Can you show me?”
“Sure.” The human stood there, smiling at him.
“Show me,” Tagen ordered after a long pause.
She began to stagger in the direction of the monitor and Tagen followed close behind, in case she fell, reminding himself that he had never thought it would be easy to question a human. The scientist had told him the effects of the sedative would last for roughly half a day. Hopefully, it would be long enough for her to train him in the basic necessities, such what was edible and how to use the privy.
The human sat down on the sofa with a rectangular black object in her hand. She aimed it at the monitor, pushed a button, and the screen lit up with images. “This is a movie,” she said, and pushed a button, changing the image. “This is a movie. This is a bad movie. This is a commercial. This is a show. This is a commercial. This is—”
It was going to be a long night.
*
Daria Cleavon came slowly to the realization that she was awake only after several minutes of staring at her bedroom ceiling. This disturbed her; she understood that she was normally quite quick to wake up, and that it should not be so bright in here. She turned her head to send an accusatory glare at the window and the whole room pivoted with her.
Was she drunk?
She could not remember drinking, but it seemed a logical assumption, explaining both the state of her head and the fact that she was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, even the shoes.
She peeled back her blankets carefully, eyes shut tight against the nausea even that little movement sparked in her, and tried to remember where she’d come by the booze. She couldn’t have stopped at a bar, could she? She never ordered anything alcoholic from the store, so she had to have stopped someplace. She could distinctly recall driving out to the post office, but everything after that was a blur.
An image came to her, rising like a soap bubble through the thick scum of her half-memories: a man’s face, huge in her mind’s eye, with the piercing golden eyes of a hawk. Daria sat frozen on the bed, blocking out all distractions as she fought to hold on to that surreal picture. She had the unshakeable impression that she had spoken to this man last night.
Was he a cop?
Daria’s subconscious seized on the idea. She thought perhaps he was, funky yellow contacts or not. Maybe he’d pulled her over for speeding.
And then he took her out for drinks?
Daria shuffled down the hall to the bathroom, bracing herself on the walls like an old woman. She wanted to run a shower, hoping that would clear her brain even a little, and then abruptly changed course and vomited into the sink.
She had to be drunk, she thought, staring in disbelief at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was green, the scars lacing up the left side of her face stood out white as cobwebs. She was just as drunk as drunk could be. How in the hell did that happen?
She rinsed her mouth twice, cleaned the sink, and then sat, exhausted, on the lid of the toilet and closed her eyes. She’d been drunk before. She didn’t remember it being anything like this. She must have tied one on like a Russian sailor. She—
The television was on. She could hear voices floating up the stairs and…and yes, that was the stark double-bong that cut
Law & Order
into sound bites.
Daria’s brow furrowed, although she couldn’t quite get her eyes to open. She hated
Law & Order
. Hated it in all its many incarnations. Dan had watched it all the time, even episodes he’d already seen. He’d been addicted to it or something. Since he’d left, Daria didn’t even watch the channels it came on.
Did the cop come home with her last night?
Alarmed, Daria realized she had vague memories of taking someone through every room in her house…answering questions…demonstrating appliances…
Uneasily, Daria slipped one hand between her thighs, gripping herself through her clothes, drawing comfort from the feel of all those layers of denim and cotton. She didn’t think she’d slept with him. She couldn’t imagine wanting to take a total stranger to bed, but then, she couldn’t imagine getting shit-faced with a cop and then showing him how the blender worked and apparently she’d done that.
Daria got up, splashed a little more water on her face, and went to see if there was someone in her house.
Gosh, she was being calm about this. Why was she being so calm? Having a total stranger in the house was a big deal, dammit.
Again, the quasi-memory of the man’s face suggested itself, frozen like a photograph. She could still hear echoes of his voice, even though she couldn’t quite make out the words. He had told her something very important, though, and then he had asked her questions.
Tell me about your planet’s defense array.
That couldn’t have been one of them. What the hell kind of question was that?
Daria started down the stairs and had made it past four of them when
Law & Order
abruptly fell silent. She stopped where she was and listened to whoever was in her house listening back at her.
Why wasn’t she panicking? She panicked pretty easy these days. She could remember panicking when the UPS guy came by unexpectedly. Why wasn’t she panicking when someone she couldn’t remember inviting home was sitting on her couch watching her TV? But just knowing she’d ought to be freaking out couldn’t seem to make it happen. Daria felt only a distant concern. She also felt a little foolish, just standing there on the stairs and staring at the coat rack in the corner of the foyer.