Robert Sheckley: Alien Harvest

“Tough,” Julie said, with no pity in her voice. “So this stuff won't cure you?”

Stan shook his head. “Some doctors have theorized that if I could obtain absolute unadulterated royal jelly fresh from an alien hive, before any by-products were added, and before it had time to lose any of its potency, it might buy me more time. But it's impossible to get.”

“Except by going to the source,” Julie said.

“Yes, that's right,” Stan repeated slowly. “Except by going to the source. To a place where the Aliens actually produce it.”

“That's the sort of place I had in mind for us to go,” Julie said. “Like I told you, I know where there's a shipload of the stuff.”

He stared at her, his eyebrows raised. Then his head slumped and he looked sad and worn. “No, no. It's quite impossible. Even if you knew of such a place —“

“That's exactly what I do know,” Julie said.

“You know a place where an alien queen produces royal jelly?”

She patted the sleek leather pouch that she carried at her side. “I've got the coordinates right in here, Stan. They're a part of my contribution to this venture.”

“Where'd you get that information?”

She smiled. She was so lovely when she smiled. “Like I told you, I was good friends with a Bio-Pharm executive. We were a little more than good friends, actually. Well, when he died — he was quite old, you understand — when he died, he decided that that particular secret shouldn't go to the grave with him.”

“So what is your idea?” Stan asked. “Do you think we can just go there and get it?”

“That's about what I had in mind,” Julie said.

“The Bio-Pharm people might have something to say about it.”

“I figured we could sneak in, grab the shipload, and get out before they spotted us.”

“You think it would be as easy as that?”

She shook her head. “I never said it would be easy.”

“Or within the law.”

She shrugged impatiently. “There's nothing illegal about salvage. Why don't you think of it as your counterclaim to their lawsuit?”

“What do you mean?”

“They're suing you for patent infringement. Wrongly, you say. Well, prove you mean it. Go in there and take what is yours — then take them to court the way they're taking you.”

Stan thought for a long while, then he began to smile. “You know, I think I'd like that.”

“Now you're talking!”

“But wait a minute, there are still a lot of problems. We don't have a ship. My alien robot has never had a field test. And I don't have any money.”

“We can do something about all that,” Julie said. “But there really isn't much time. Not for you and not for me. If we're going to do this, we'll have to start real soon. And once we begin, there's no turning back.”

“I understand,” Stan said.

Julie leaned forward and took Stan's face in her cool hands. He felt something like an electric shock pass through him. Looking at her, he thought he'd never seen anyone so beautiful and so brave. Yes, and maybe a little crazy, too, but what did that matter?

“I want you to think about it, Stan,” Julie said. “Give me your answer tomorrow night over dinner. If you don't want to do it, fine, no hard feelings. But if you do — listen to me carefully.”

“I'm listening,” Stan said. In fact, he was barely breathing.

“If you do decide to do it, then no more crap about something being difficult or you being sick or any of that. If you're going to do it, simply decide to do it, and we'll go on from there.”

“That sounds pretty good to me,” Stan said. “Julie, where'd you learn all this stuff?”

“From my teacher, Shen Hui.”

“He must have been a pretty wise old egg.”

“It didn't prevent him from dying,” Julie said. “But while he lived, he really lived. Till tomorrow, Stan.”

“Where are you going?” Stan said in alarm as she stood up.

“I'm sure you've got a spare bedroom here,” Julie said. “I'm going to take a shower and change, and then look over your library and lab. Then I want to get some sleep.”

“Oh, fine. I was afraid you were leaving.”

She shook her head. “Play your cards right and I'll never leave again.”

Julie had always been unusual. She'd never known her parents. Her earliest memories were of an international orphanage in Shanghai. This was the place from which Shen Hui bought her, when she was still a very little girl. He had been very good to her, treating her like a favored child rather than a slave. But she was still a slave and she knew it, and it rankled. Shen Hui taught her independence of spirit as well as how to be a good thief. It was inevitable that she would try out her need for liberty on him, the one who was holding her.

She was devious about it, just as he had taught her. She put aside money from jobs she did for him. And she studied and learned so she would know all she needed when she was ready to cut loose from him. And then came the question of finding the right time. It seemed to take forever, and the right moment never seemed to come.

At last they traveled together to Europe. Shen Hui had it in mind to relieve some of the largest art galleries on the continent of some of their smaller and most prized possessions: miniature paintings, small sculpture, carved objects. They went to Zurich first.

The first night Julie excused herself in the lobby of the Grand Basle Hotel, went to the ladies' room, and never returned.

She had planned well. From the powder room, with a small fortune and a forged passport secreted on her person, she made her way to the airport, and then to Madrid, Lisbon, and London. She made the trail difficult for Shen Hui to follow. And she prepared something else.

He came after her, as she had known he would. He wasn't going to let her get away that easily. He had invested a lot of money in her, and besides, his feelings were hurt. He had thought she loved him. He had forgotten his own advice — never trust a slave. His love was replaced by hatred, all the more powerful because it was based on his own guilt and ignorance in being duped by the illusion he had created and named Julie.

They met up almost a year later. He came upon her in one of the public squares in Paris, near the Seine. Julie was wearing a black sealskin coat and a chinchilla hat.

Shen Hui noted sardonically that it hadn't taken her long to outfit herself. He added that she had been silly to expose herself to him in this way.

“What do you mean?” she'd asked.

“I mean if you had any brains, you wouldn't have let me catch up with you. Do you realize how easily I could kill you? And you could do nothing about it, not even with all the skills I taught you.”

“I know that,” Julie said. “And I wasn't careless. I chose to let you find me.”

“What are you up to?”

“I don't choose to spend my life running,” Julie said. “I am extremely grateful to you, Shen Hui. You have taught me respect for the deeper law that underlies appearances. I appeal to that law now. Although you legally own me, your investment has been repaid many times and it is time that I went free. I served you well and you know it. I would like to shake hands and have us part friends.”

Shen Hui stared at her. His skin had aged incredibly, with a yellow cast to it like parchment that has been dried too long in the sun. She had never seen him looking so old. Even his thin mustache, which dropped down on either side of his face, seemed lifeless.

And his eyes were brown and opaque.

She wasn't sure what he would say. She knew that her life hung in the balance. Old as he was, and apparently unarmed, she had no doubt he could kill her anytime he chose.