I’d lived out one of the short life terms of the species and then left with no desire to return. The amazing clarity of my thoughts, the easy answers that came to any question almost without effort, the march and dance of numbers were no substitute for emotion and color, which I could only vaguely understand when inside that body. I wondered how any soul could be content there, but the planet had been self-sufficient for thousands of Earth years. It was still open for settling only because the Spiders reproduced so quickly—great sacs of eggs.
I started to tell Jamie how the offensive had been launched here. The Spiders were our best engineers—the ships they made for us danced nimbly and undetectably through the stars. The Spiders’ bodies were almost as useful as their minds: four long legs to each segment—from which they’d earned their nickname on this planet—and twelve-fingered hands on each leg. These six-jointed fingers were as slender and strong as steel threads, capable of the most delicate procedures. About the mass of a cow, but short and lean, the Spiders had no trouble with the first insertions. They were stronger than humans, smarter than humans, and prepared, which the humans were not.…
I stopped short, midsentence, when I saw the crystalline sparkle on Jamie’s cheek.
He was staring straight ahead at nothing, his lips pressed in a tight line. A large drop of salt water rolled slowly down the cheek closest to me.
Idiot, Melanie chastised me. Didn’t you think what your story would mean to him?
Didn’t you think of warning me sooner?
She didn’t answer. No doubt she’d been as caught up in the storytelling as I was.
“Jamie,” I murmured. My voice was thick. The sight of his tear had done strange things to my throat. “Jamie, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
Jamie shook his head. “’S okay. I asked. I wanted to know how it happened.” His voice was gruff, trying to hide the pain.
It was instinctive, the desire to lean forward and wipe that tear away. I tried at first to ignore it; I was not Melanie. But the tear hung there, motionless, as if it would never fall. Jamie’s eyes stayed fixed on the blank wall, and his lips trembled.
He wasn’t far from me. I stretched my arm out to brush my fingers against his cheek; the tear spread thin across his skin and disappeared. Acting on instinct again, I left my hand against his warm cheek, cradling his face.
For a short second, he pretended to ignore me.
Then he rolled toward me, his eyes closed, his hands reaching. He curled into my side, his cheek against the hollow of my shoulder, where it had once fit better, and sobbed.
These were not the tears of a child, and that made them more profound—made it more sacred and painful that he would cry them in front of me. This was the grief of a man at the funeral for his entire family.
My arms wound around him, not fitting as easily as they used to, and I cried, too.
“I’m sorry,” I said again and again. I apologized for everything in those two words. That we’d ever found this place. That we’d chosen it. That I’d been the one to take his sister. That I’d brought her back here and hurt him again. That I’d made him cry today with my insensitive stories.
I didn’t drop my arms when his anguish quieted; I was in no hurry to let him go. It seemed as though my body had been starving for this from the beginning, but I’d never understood before now what would feed the hunger. The mysterious bond of mother and child—so strong on this planet—was not a mystery to me any longer. There was no bond greater than one that required your life for another’s. I’d understood this truth before; what I had not understood was why. Now I knew why a mother would give her life for her child, and this knowledge would forever shape the way I saw the universe.
“I know I’ve taught you better than that, kid.”
We jumped apart. Jamie lurched to his feet, but I curled closer to the ground, cringing into the wall.
Jeb leaned down and picked up the gun we’d both forgotten from the floor. “You’ve got to mind a gun better than this, Jamie.” His tone was very gentle—it softened the criticism. He reached out to tousle Jamie’s shaggy hair.
Jamie ducked under Jeb’s hand, his face scarlet with mortification.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and turned as if to flee. He stopped after just a step, though, and swiveled back to look at me. “I don’t know your name,” he said.
“They called me Wanderer,” I whispered.
“Wanderer?”
I nodded.
He nodded, too, then hurried away. The back of his neck was still red.
When he was gone, Jeb leaned against the rock and slid down till he was seated where Jamie had been. Like Jamie, he kept the gun cradled in his lap.
“That’s a real interesting name you’ve got there,” he told me. He seemed to be back to his chatty mood. “Maybe sometime you’ll tell me how you got it. Bet that’s a good story. But it’s kind of a mouthful, don’t you think? Wanderer?”
I stared at him.
“Mind if I call you Wanda, for short? It flows easier.”
He waited this time for a response. Finally, I shrugged. It didn’t matter to me whether he called me “kid” or some strange human nickname. I believed it was meant kindly.
“Okay, then, Wanda.” He smiled, pleased at his invention. “It’s nice to have a handle on you. Makes me feel like we’re old friends.”
He grinned that huge, cheek-stretching grin, and I couldn’t help grinning back, though my smile was more rueful than delighted. He was supposed to be my enemy. He was probably insane. And he was my friend. Not that he wouldn’t kill me if things turned out that way, but he wouldn’t like doing it. With humans, what more could you ask of a friend?
CHAPTER 22
Cracked
Jeb put his hands behind his head and looked up at the dark ceiling, his face thoughtful. His chatty mood had not passed.
“I’ve wondered a lot what it’s like—getting caught, you know. Saw it happen more than once, come close a few times myself. What would it be like, I wondered. Would it hurt, having something put in your head? I’ve seen it done, you know.”
My eyes widened in surprise, but he wasn’t looking at me.
“Seems like you all use some kind of anesthetic, but that’s just a guess. Nobody was screaming in agony or anything, though, so it couldn’t be too torturous.”
I wrinkled my nose. Torture. No, that was the humans’ specialty.
“Those stories you were telling the kid were real interesting.”
I stiffened and he laughed lightly. “Yeah, I was listening. Eavesdropping, I’ll admit it. I’m not sorry—it was great stuff, and you won’t talk to me the way you do with Jamie. I really got a kick out of those bats and the plants and spiders. Gives a man lots to think about. Always liked to read crazy, out-there stuff, science fiction and whatnot. Ate that stuff up. And the kid’s like me—he’s read all the books I’ve got, two, three times apiece. Must be a treat for him to get some new stories. Sure is for me. You’re a good storyteller.”
I kept my eyes down, but I felt myself softening, losing my guard a bit. Like anyone inside these emotional bodies, I was a sucker for flattery.
“Everyone here thinks you hunted us out to turn us over to the Seekers.”
The word sent a shock jolting through me. My jaw stiffened and my teeth cut my tongue. I tasted blood.
“What other reason could there be?” he went on, oblivious to my reaction or ignoring it. “But they’re just trapped in fixed notions, I think. I’m the only one with questions.… I mean, what kind of a plan was that, to wander off into the desert without any way to get back?” He chuckled. “Wandering—guess that’s your specialty, eh, Wanda?”
He leaned toward me and nudged me with one elbow. Wide with uncertainty, my eyes flickered to the floor, to his face, and back to the floor. He laughed again.
“That trek was just a few steps shy of a successful suicide, in my opinion. Definitely not a Seeker’s MO, if you know what I mean. I’ve tried to reason it out. Use logic, right? So, if you didn’t have backup, which I’ve seen no sign of, and you had no way to get back, then you must’ve had a different goal. You haven’t been real talkative since you got here, ’cept with the kid just now, but I’ve listened to what you have said. Kind of seems to me like the reason you almost died out there was ’cause you were hell-bent on finding that kid and Jared.”
I closed my eyes.
“Only why would you care?” Jeb asked, expecting no answer, just musing. “So, this is how I see it: either you’re a really good actress—like a super-Seeker, some new breed, sneakier than the first—with some kind of a plan I can’t figure out, or you’re not acting. The first seems like a pretty complicated explanation for your behavior, then and now, and I don’t buy it.
“But if you’re not acting…”
He paused for a moment.
“Spent a lot of time watching your kind. I was always waiting for them to change, you know, when they didn’t have to act like us anymore, because there was no one to act for. I kept on watching and waiting, but they just kept on actin’ like humans. Staying with their bodies’ families, going out for picnics in good weather, plantin’ flowers and paintin’ pictures and all the rest of it. I’ve been wondering if you all aren’t turning sort of human. If we don’t have some real influence, in the end.”