Robert Sawyer - Foreigner

“No, although I was sad after I left her in Pack Gelbo. I thought I’d never see her again.”

“But you did.”

For one moment, the bitter Afsan was back. “No, not really. I’ve been in her presence since then many times, but I’ve never seen her again.”

“Of course,” said Mokleb. “Forgive me. Tell me a bit about your reunion.”

“It was on the Dasheter . There had been riots in the Central Square, the land was shaking, the Ch’mar volcanoes were erupting, and I was badly injured. Pal-Cadool saved my life, spiriting me to safety aboard the Dasheter .”

“Where you were reunited with Novato.”

“Yes, and discovered that I had eight children by her. There was a bad moment there, actually. I was lying on the deck, exhausted, and the children were crawling on me. It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful, and then, with a start, I realized that seven of them would have to die. It was the most crushing moment of my life, to have met them only to realize that seven of them would be killed by the bloodpriests.”

“But then Novato explained to you that the bloodpriests weren’t going to touch your children, that they’d made a special dispensation because they thought you were The One.”

“Yes. That’s the only time I was ever glad of that silly title. Because I was The One, more than one of them would get to live.”

“And if it had turned out that Novato’s and your children were not to be spared, that seven of them were to have been killed, how would you have felt?”

“I don’t want to think about that,” said Afsan.

“Hypothetically,” said Mokleb. “How would you have felt?”

A long pause. “At the time, I was reassured by her so quickly that I don’t think I gave it much thought. Today, though… today, I don’t know. I was appallingly naive as a youngster, Mokleb. Old Cat-Julor, one of the creche mothers back in Carno, made fun of me for that when I paid a return visit there after seeing Novato that first time. I didn’t know what happened to extra babies. I accept the necessity of the bloodpriests, but if Novato had introduced me to my children so that we had made… made impressions on each other, and then she’d told me that seven of them were to be killed, I’d have resented it. I’d have resented her.”

“I’m sorry to have upset you,” said Mokleb. “Let me take a moment to review my notes. Just relax, Afsan.” Mokleb was quiet for a time, shuffling papers. The steady wind continued.

After a while, Afsan said, “You know, I do find you fascinating, Mokleb. You’ve got a keen mind.”

“Thank you.”

“I wish we could spend more time together.” A pause. “Novato and me, I mean.”

“Of course,” said Mokleb.

“It is warm today,” said Afsan. And then: “We spend so little time interacting, one with another. There’s so much about other people that we don’t know. I wish…” Afsan trailed off.

“Yes, Afsan?”

“I, um, I’ve got to go. Excuse me, please.”

“Our session isn’t over yet.”

“I know, but I—I really should be going.”

“Do you have another appointment?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—” Afsan pushed up off the boulder. He nonchalantly brought a hand to his neck, feeling the slight puffing of his dewlap. “You shouldn’t have sat upwind of me, Mokleb.”

“Too many pheromones?” she asked in an innocent tone.

“I’ve—I’ve got to go,” said Afsan. Gork, who had been sunning himself nearby, took note of the fact that Afsan had risen and padded over to him, rubbing against his legs. Afsan groped for the beast’s harness. “I’ve got to go,” he said again, and with that, he began to walk away.

An average Quintaglio life span was four years, each of which was eighteen thousand days long. Novato was about to become officially middle-aged, her life half over. And for almost one full year now, she had been wrestling with her emotions.

She had laid a total of sixteen eggs so far in her life: eight by Afsan, eight by Garios.

She remembered laying them. For the first clutch, she had gone into the creche in Pack Gelbo, had squatted over the birthing sands, and, one by one, the soft-shelled eggs had come out. Without any instruction, she’d known exactly how to move, taking a sideways step after each egg had been deposited so that they ended up in a circle, their long axes pointing toward an empty space in the center. Passing the eggs had been painful, but there had been a deep satisfaction in knowing that she was contributing to the ongoing development of the Quintaglio race.

Other clutches of eggs had already been laid there. As she stood at the exit to the chamber, Novato had looked back one final time into the room. If it weren’t for her fresh footprints across the sand leading to her own clutch, she wouldn’t have been able to identify her eggs.

She’d never expected to see those eggs again. But word soon came, from one no less famous than Var-Keenir himself, that Afsan might be The One foretold by Lubal. The eggs were rescued from the creche (the creche masters, it turned out, kept meticulous records), and Novato and her clutch were taken aboard the Dasheter to Capital City for a rendezvous with Afsan.

And so it came that all eight members of that clutch got to live, and that Novato knew exactly who they were. It was a bizarre feeling at first, going against everything she’d been taught. According to the eighteenth sacred scroll, children are the children of the Pack, not of any one individual. But these children were her children; there was no question of who their parents were.

She had known them all: Kelboon and Toroca, Dynax and Drawtood, Yabool and Galpook, Haldan and poor little Helbark.

Her children.

Not just the Pack’s.

Hers.

Novato had been moved to mate with Afsan when she was just sixteen (and he was thirteen). For two kilodays, she’d wondered what would happen when she became the normal age for reproduction. Would she be moved to mate again?

The answer, it turned out, was yes.

By that time, Novato had taken up residence in Capital City, where she was director of the exodus project. And when Novato found herself calling for a mate again, Afsan, now blind, was far away, touring Land with Emperor Dybo, trying to rally support for the exodus.

And so she had coupled with Den-Garios. He was a fine fellow, a good fellow, a fellow who in all ways was desirable, a fellow who—and still it hurt to contemplate this—was not Afsan.

By Garios, she’d laid another eight eggs, this time in Capital City’s much larger creche.

But there had been nothing special about those eggs. Seven of the eight hatchlings were swallowed whole. The only special treatment they got, because Novato was a minister now in Dybo’s government, was that the culling had supposedly been performed personally by Mek-Maliden, the imperial bloodpriest.

So one hatchling remained.

But seventeen clutches of eggs had been hatched at approximately the same time.

That meant there were seventeen possible candidates for being Novato’s son or daughter.

Seventeen.

Statistics were easy to obtain. There were nine females and eight males. But specifics about parentage were unavailable. Novato had thought she might be able to find out by using her newfound authority, assuming records had been kept. Dybo had said that she could issue any orders she deemed necessary. But people would want to know why she required the information and, well, she wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that.

As the kilodays went by, Novato wondered less and less frequently who her ninth child was, although she did find herself keeping track of the seventeen hatchlings. Two of them died in childhood, one of the same kind of fever that had earlier claimed little Helbark. One more was killed on his first hunt, and two eventually left Capital City for other parts of Land. Still, she followed the lives of the thirteen who remained in the Capital with interest.