Breath of Life Read online

  Before then I’d never really stopped to think how difficult it could be to carry on a conversation with someone whose face was completely obscured. He could have been smiling at me, or frowning. I didn’t know, and as his tone remained calm and level, I couldn’t discern anything from that, either. True, it was entirely possible the Zhore didn’t share any facial expressions with humans, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell anything even if I had been able to see him clearly.

  That he was humanoid in shape was clear enough, even with the concealing cloak. So far the Gaian Federation had encountered nine sentient alien races; of those, five were humanoid—some so close to humans in their physiognomy that debates were ongoing about convergent evolution or “space seeding” by some highly developed race some time in the remote past. I didn’t know if the Zhore fell into that category or not, as no one had ever seen one, but they were still classified as humanoid since they had two arms, two legs, and one head. Maybe that should have reassured me, but humanoid still was not human.

  Then Sarzhin seemed to take pity on me, or possibly he didn’t like the silence too much, because he asked if I was catching up all right with my coursework. Relieved, I told him about the vid-lectures I’d watched and the paper I’d begun to write on the original Gaian-Eridani trade agreements.

  I didn’t know if he was really interested or not, but he gave a good enough imitation of attention, and the prosy topic was enough to keep the conversation going throughout most of our meal. Actually, he made a few suggestions as to further areas I might research, and I gratefully accepted his advice. If nothing else, he clearly was well-read. Zhore didn’t attend any of the universities the other humanoids had set up and now shared, but of course they must have their own institutions on their home world—which, like the Zhore, no one had ever seen. They allowed outsiders as far in as the fifth planet from their sun, but their own world, the fourth one in the Zhore system, was off-limits to outsiders.

  Despite our warlike past, we Gaians are more interested in exploration and peaceful settlement, and we respected the Zhores’ boundaries. We hadn’t done the same here on Lathvin, but then again, it wasn’t their home world. Anyway, disputes still raged as to which race had really set foot on the planet first.

  Dinner—another excellent meal, this time some kind of grain and vegetable dish—wound down, and the mech once again appeared to clear away our dishes.

  Sarzhin sat up a little straighter in his chair and said, “Anika, will you marry me?”

  This time the request wasn’t quite as unexpected, but I still shivered a little as I heard his deep, solemn voice utter those words. I stared down at the black, polished surface of the dining room table. “You know I can’t.”

  “Do I?” He sounded almost amused.

  “Look, even if you weren’t—I mean, even if you were a human man, I wouldn’t marry you.”

  “Why not?”

  I knew he wasn’t that obtuse, no, not by a long shot. But if he really wanted it spelled out for him… “Because I’ve known you for what, a day and a half? I know nothing of you, and you know nothing of me. How can you make a marriage out of that?”

  “And that is your only objection? Not the fact that I am a Zhore?”

  How was I supposed to answer that? If someone had put the question to me in a purely hypothetical manner, I probably would have said I didn’t have any objection to such a thing in principle. After all, members of the different humanoid races did intermarry from time to time, although in some cultures those liaisons were frowned upon. I’d teased Libba once or twice about bringing home a purple-skinned, antennaed Eridani boyfriend from the university, but I knew she was too conventional for such a thing. My father had joined in, saying he didn’t care if her boyfriend was purple or covered in fur, as long as he had a real job. At that point she’d blushed and switched off the transmission.

  But it was one thing to espouse such an admittedly liberal viewpoint in a theoretical sense and quite another to be confronted by it in your own life. Also, at least I knew what an Eridani looked like. I couldn’t say the same thing about a Zhore. Sarzhin could be hiding anything under that cloak—horns, tentacles, fangs.

  “All right, it’s one of my main objections,” I said.

  He chuckled. “At least you are honest. I will say that I do appreciate that. My people have little patience for dishonesty.”

  No wonder they’re not big fans of the GRC. Since he sounded at least a little approving and not that disappointed, I felt brave enough to ask, “Why are you asking me, anyway? Wouldn’t it make more sense to marry a Zhore woman?”

  A sudden stillness around him told me that I had just asked exactly the wrong question. An uneasy silence fell, and I quickly redirected my attention toward the dark tabletop once more.

  “I cannot answer that question,” he replied at length. His voice was cold and even, all approval gone. “At least, not in a way you could possibly understand.”

  That sounded almost insulting, but I decided not to press the point. Obviously I had struck some sort of nerve. As this was his house, and his rules, I decided it would be better to keep my mouth shut. So far he had been nothing but courteous to me, but that didn’t mean much. I didn’t know what a Zhore might be capable of, although no one in Port Natchez had ever said anything bad about Sarzhin or the others of his kind who lived in our region. The worst anyone could say was that the Zhore kept to themselves.

  I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that we know so little of your people—”

  “No offense taken,” he said at once. “It is a…difficult…topic. Perhaps at some point I can attempt to explain it to you. For now, however, I think it best that you go to bed.”

  I was far from sleepy, but I only nodded. It would be a relief to escape to my room, where I could shut the door and try to pretend I wasn’t sharing a house with an enigmatic alien who wanted to make me his wife. I rose from my chair, and he added, “You are free to communicate with your family. I would guess they are concerned for your safety. I merely ask that the mails you send be text only—no video. And please, do not speak with them of what I have asked of you.”

  Startled, I glanced over at him. He had remained seated—the hood was tilted up slightly toward me, but of course I still saw nothing of his face. Earlier in the day I had thought of trying to contact my parents, but I worried that he was monitoring or intercepting everything I sent from my new computer and thought it probably better to do nothing. Now that I had Sarzhin’s express permission, I could send a message to my parents and let them know I was fine. Well, mostly fine, anyway. They didn’t need to know what my host’s marriage requests were doing to my already shaky peace of mind.

  “Sure.” I didn’t bother to add that I wouldn’t have spoken of it even if he had told me it was all right. I didn’t even want to imagine my father’s reaction if he learned what the Zhore had really wanted of me. “I understand.”

  Actually, I didn’t understand at all, but at the moment I only wanted to get away.

  He said, “Thank you.”

  I took that as my opportunity to end the conversation. I managed to smile and then left him, still seated at the head of that enormous table. Somehow I kept myself from turning to look back at him. How many nights had he spent sitting alone in that dining room before I had come here to stay?

  It shouldn’t have mattered. Somehow, though, as I mounted the stairs to my room, I kept seeing that enigmatic black figure, and the echoing expanses of the empty chamber around him. A little tremor of doubt went through me. It can’t have been easy, rattling around in this enormous house by himself.

  And that shouldn’t be your problem, I told myself, and shut my bedroom door behind me. Even though he’s tried to make it your problem.

  True, of course, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something else I could have said, something that would have made my exit less abrupt. After all, he had just granted me permission to communicate
with my family, and I hadn’t even thanked him.

  Since it was too late for me to do anything about that, I just went to the computer and pulled up my mail client. I needed to compose a message that sounded cheerful and yet not too effusive. I’d never been the type to gush, and my father would be sure to notice something odd if I waxed too rhapsodic about my current living situation.

  I’m all settled in, and the Zhore—I wondered whether it was all right to give my parents my host’s name, and then decided against it—has done everything he can to make sure I’m comfortable. I have a nice room of my own, and I also have my own computer setup, so there are no worries about me continuing with my university coursework. He was adamant that I not miss out on any of that. The house is quite nice, and he has a greenhouse with all sorts of interesting plants. Everything is going well. I just wanted to let you know I’m all right. I miss you, but you don’t need to worry about me. Let me know how your new hydroponic setup is working out. Love, Anika.

  Before I could erase the whole thing and start over, I hit the “send” button and let the mail fly off into the ether. How my parents would react to the stilted little missive, I couldn’t begin to guess. After all, since it was straight text and not video, they had no way of knowing I hadn’t written the whole thing with a particle gun pressed against my temple, or even whether I’d written it myself. Well, maybe my little request at the end about my father’s hydroponic experiments would help to clue them in that I really was the author.

  Afterward, I went to bed. I suppose I was more tired than I had thought, because I ended up falling asleep quite soon after I lay down—but not soon enough to keep me from wondering what it would be like to have that dark shape lying next to me, that deep voice the last thing I heard before I shut my eyes.

  I shivered, even though the bed coverings were soft and warm.

  The next morning I found a breakfast tray outside my room. It could have been a signal of Sarzhin’s displeasure with me, or possibly just a sign that he had other business to attend to and didn’t have time for a leisurely breakfast. I tried to tell myself the little stab of disappointment that passed through me was simply because the meal on the tray—a warm, sweet grain dish and some fruit—wasn’t nearly as interesting as the two other breakfasts I had shared with him.

  That disappointment didn’t last long, however, because soon afterward the mech appeared at my door carrying a large box, which proved to be my clothing purchases of the day before. Although I knew I should get back to the paper I was writing and the lectures that were undoubtedly queuing up in my downloads folder, I spent the good part of an hour pulling out all the outfits, arranging the shoes, deciding which one of them I should wear first. I hoped I could be forgiven for acting like a girl. After all, I’d never had the opportunity to wear pretty things before. I hadn’t realized that clothes could feel as wonderful as they looked—the elegant fabrics whispered over my fingertips and clung to my form in a way my utilitarian work garments never had.

  It was difficult to choose which to wear first, but I decided at last on a dark greenish-blue outfit with bronze-colored embroidery around the neckline. The girl who stared out at me from the mirror seemed almost a stranger, elegant and refined, certainly not someone who had once been up to her elbows in oil helping her father repair a broken pump in the atmospheric generator.

  In that moment I was glad I had decided against cutting my hair. A few months earlier I had almost chopped it all off because all I ever did was braid it back to keep it out of the way, but at the last minute I’d put down the scissors, reluctant to get rid of it even if it wasn’t as pretty as my sister’s red-gold waves. Now, with it lying loose over my shoulders, the warm brown looked sleek and rich against the deep color of my tunic, and not drab at all.

  Of course, it didn’t seem as if I’d have much opportunity to show myself off, as I received no summons to go downstairs and therefore returned to my computer with some reluctance. Through sheer effort of will I pounded through the first draft of my paper on the Eridani-Gaian trade agreement, and then paused to see if I’d gotten any mail. My father had just responded to my message; he tended to check his own mail in the middle of the day when he took a break to eat.

  We’re very happy to hear that you’re safe and doing well and that you’re continuing with your schoolwork. Has the Zhore said anything to you about why he wants you there?

  Typical of my father to ask questions to which I had no answers…at least no answers I wanted to give. I had no idea what I could possibly say, so I closed the message and told myself I’d answer him later, when I had more time to think. In the meantime, I had a lecture I needed to watch and take notes on, because the follow-up study group had been scheduled for very early the next morning. That was one problem with doing these things remotely—the professors tried to rotate the live-feed study groups so no one person was always stuck with the shift in the middle of the night, but the upshot was that sooner or later you’d be staggering into a study group at three o’clock in the morning local time.

  I’d gotten through approximately fifteen minutes of the xenolinguistics lecture when I heard a knock. After pausing the feed, I got up from my chair and opened the door.

  Sarzhin’s dark, hooded form waited outside. Absurdly, a little rush of excitement went through me. At least it appeared I wasn’t going to be eating lunch off a tray in my room.

  “My apologies for not sharing breakfast,” he said. “I had business to attend to.”

  “That’s fine,” I replied, and chided myself mentally for sounding a little too breathless. “I was studying.”

  “Are you hungry now?”

  “Oh, yes. Trade agreements can do that to a girl, I guess.”

  He chuckled. “Well, we must do something about that.”

  I stepped out through the doorway and turned to palm the lock. When I faced back out into the corridor, I saw Sarzhin standing there, staring at me. At least, I assumed that was what he was doing—the hood had tilted down toward me, and he made no sign of moving.

  “Is something wrong?”

  At once the hood jerked upright. “No—that is, I should have said you were looking very well. Your new things arrived this morning?”

  “Yes.” I quelled the urge to turn around so he could see my finery from all angles. “Better?”

  “Much better.”

  It wasn’t hard to hear the approval in his tone, and a little heat flooded my cheeks. I glanced away, hoping that the Zhore wasn’t very good at reading human reactions and so therefore would have no idea what my sudden flush meant.

  He continued, the words sounding a little rushed, “I thought we might try something a little different today.”

  “Different?” I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. I’d barely gotten used to the bit of a routine we’d put in place so far.

  “You’ll see. Come.”

  And so I followed him downstairs, past the dining room. I could feel myself frowning in puzzlement, but I continued to trot along behind him as he swept on to the back of the mansion and the entrance to the greenhouse.

  In the main part of the house I’d hardly been able to hear the rain, but here the sound of it was more pronounced, the raindrops creating a dull roar as they hit the heavy polymer panels overhead. Somehow, though, the noise didn’t intrude, but created instead a soothing background note, rather like a recording I’d heard once of waves breaking against a seashore. The air was warm and heavy, filled with the scents of hundreds of exotic flowers.

  “Here,” Sarzhin said, and I looked to see that a small table and two chairs had been set up in a little artificial glade created by a dozen or so small specimen trees in their individual tubs. A glow cell flickered from a faceted glass holder at the center of the table, while our meals appeared to be already waiting for us under protective clear globes.

  In all, it was very lovely, and quite a change from the elegant but cold dining room where we’d previously shared our meals. Of co
urse I immediately wondered whether he’d set all this up because he thought it would provide a setting more conducive to my accepting his proposal, but I tried to tell myself this was only lunch, and the previous two days he had waited until after dinner to ask me to marry him. A small reassurance, but at the moment I was willing to take what I could get.

  “This really is different,” I told him.

  “You like it?”

  About that at least I could be honest. “Very much.”

  He indicated I should sit down, so I took my seat in the little chair of delicately wrought metal situated opposite his. After I had seated myself, he sat across from me and poured some water into my glass from a pitcher that had been sitting off to one side of the table. I had gotten quite fond of that water during my short time in the Zhore’s home. Unlike the water back at the homestead, which always had a faintly metallic taste from being processed and reprocessed, the water here was sweet and pure and refreshed me in a way that our ’cycled water never could.

  “Does it remind you of your home world?” he inquired, as he lifted the covers from our plates and set them aside on a second, smaller table that had been placed a few feet off, apparently for serving duties.

  “Gaia?”

  He nodded.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I replied. As usual, I had no idea what was on my plate, but it smelled delicious. Somehow I kept myself from lifting my fork and plowing right into the food. I guessed I should answer Sarzhin’s question before I started stuffing my face. “That is, I was born on Gaia, but my parents moved to the moon when I was only eighteen standard months old. I don’t remember anything about Gaia.”

  “Oh. Pity.”

  I supposed it was. Twenty years before I was born, no one would have attempted such a thing with a child that age, but once the gravity compensators were perfected, living on the moon didn’t have the same physiological drawbacks that it used to. Still, it had been odd to see Gaia’s blue-green shape rise and fall in the sky and know I’d probably never get back there. Even that expense, small as it was, didn’t fit into my parents’ budget, especially since neither of them had any friends or family for us to visit on Gaia. The only reason we made it out to Lathvin was that the GRC pays full passage to its homestead planets. If you want to leave, the cost is on you, but getting there isn’t a problem. And Libba’s fare to Eridani had been included in her scholarship funds, but she certainly didn’t have any left over for return trips, which was why we hadn’t seen her for almost five years.