Алан Дин Фостер - Relic

He had forgotten to activate the communications device. No wonder none of his companions had arrived in response to his frantic calling. Nudging the appropriate tab, he was pleasantly surprised when Kel’les answered instead of one of the scientists or escorts from the outpost. His minder’s tone was anxious.

“Ruslan? We have not heard from you in some time. We were about to—”

“I’m fine and on my way back,” he said, hurrying to allay his handler’s concern. “And I have company. When you see her, you’ll understand the confusion that arose from the automatics’ report.”

“You make funny sounds.” Cherpa was looking up at him. He was careful to let her hold his hand instead of gripping hers. He did not want her to feel as if he was attempting to pull her along.

“That’s Myssarian, the language of my friends,” he explained. “It’s very straightforward and not hard for a human to learn. I’ll teach you myself. Until then you’ll have to wear a translator. I did, too, when they first found me.”

She pondered this as they made their way across pedestrian walkways that were strewn like disembodied tendons above the mudflats and throughout the empty city. “So you were alone, too? Like me, except that these Miserables found you?”

“Myssari,” he corrected her. “They’re very nice people. Don’t let their appearance frighten you. They have three arms and three legs and more joints than we do.”

Her reaction was not what he expected. She clapped her hands and looked delighted. “An extra arm and an extra leg! You’re right, Bogo—they are funny. I don’t think I’ll be scared at all.”

After the life you’ve likely had, he thought somberly, I doubt there’s much that could scare you . Still, he didn’t want to take any chances. It would be heartbreaking if, after having found another living human, something caused her to panic, flee, and lose herself back in the dark viscera of the city. Nor did he want to do anything that might result in having to restrain her against her will. Given her apparently precarious state of mental health, pushing her too hard might well result in sending her over a psychological cliff from which her remaining degree of sanity might never recover.

He knew what the Myssari reaction would be. Restraining their eagerness to study her was not going to be easy. Presented with a second living representative of the species, and one of the opposite gender at that, they were going to want to poke, probe, measure, and record the girl down to the smallest detail. He was going to have to impress on them that she was not only immature but mentally unsettled. Examine the crystal too closely and too often and you are liable to shatter it. An outcome like that would crush both him and his alien associates.

An ancient human expression come down through the centuries would have to define his position. What was it… “ Cave canum ”? No. “Back down”? No… “Back off.” Yes, that was it. Where Cherpa was concerned, the impatient Myssari were going to have to back off lest they damage the very subject they wished to appreciate.

That would extend to the removal of any viable eggs whenever the girl became sexually mature. Desperately as they wished to reestablish the human species, they were going to have to continue to focus on cloning his cells and those of the recently deceased rather than actual breeding. Theoretically, his own sperm ought to be serviceable for another twenty years or so, if not longer. While he did not wish to contemplate such activities, he knew that he must, if for no other reason than that it would be one of the first issues the Myssari would raise.

Was her psychosis inheritable? Had she been crazy from birth? He had a sudden vision of a successfully resurrected humankind—all mad. Would that, after all, be so very different from the species that had created and disseminated the Aura Malignance?

For now, he pushed the unsettling images from his mind. The girl had just been found. She was about to be introduced to aliens and an alien society. Unlike the mature individual he had been when a Myssari exploration team had found him wandering on Seraboth, she had no reference points for such an encounter. In contrast, he’d had access to more than a hundred years of studying and learning, albeit largely self-directed. In the absence of such experience, he would have to direct for her. He would have to explain, to teach, to assure. Whether she would let him or not remained to be seen.

In dreaming of finding another human alive, he had fantasized himself as a mate. Not a teacher. But he resolved to accept the destiny Fate had handed him with as much grace as possible.

The small, leather-tough hand that firmly gripped his made it easier for him to acquiesce to that inevitability.

She might have found his description of the Myssari amusing, but it turned out that his own estimation of her courageousness had been overdone. When she saw them approaching in their exploration gear, Bac’cul in the lead, she let out a cross between a scream and a squeak and tried to bolt. Gripping her hand tightly (he told himself it was for purposes of reassurance and not restraint), he knelt down and hurried to calm her.

“Hey, hey!… Relax, Cherpa. They’re friends, I told you.” He put on his best smile. “You said they sounded funny. Just look at them. They are funny-looking, aren’t they?” The pull on his hand, the frantic desire to escape, grew less insistent. Her wide-eyed gaze flicked rapidly between him and the approaching Myssari. He kept talking—fast, but not so fast as to suggest panic. “See how they walk? Sometimes the middle leg first and then the other two, sometimes one-two-three, one-two-three.” He leaned closer and she did not pull away. “You know what’s really funny?” She shook her head uncertainly. “Watching a Myssari trip over all three of its own feet.”

Her brows drew together, an indication that internal visualization was hard at work. Then she smiled. It was the second-most-beautiful thing he had seen that day, following his first full glimpse of the long-tressed girl.

“My friends will be your friends,” he promised her. “They can be a lot of fun. You know what else is fun?” The Myssari team was almost upon them now and he made sure to keep his body between them and her. “A haircut. See?” Reaching up, he ran his palm across a pate that was covered with very short gray follicles. “But we won’t cut yours this short. Unless you want it this short.” He hoped she would not say yes. Though it was an utterly unscientific, culturally antique thought, he was inordinately pleased when she did not.

To their credit, the Myssari slowed their advance despite their unconcealed excitement.

“Another human!” Cor’rin was breathing hard as she stared. “And an immature female at that. I never thought to see such a thing. Wonderful, wonderful!” Forcing her gaze away from the wide-eyed newcomer, she regarded Ruslan. “Is she healthy?”

Not “What is her name?” or “How is she feeling?” Ruslan thought. As a Myssari scientist, Cor’rin’s first concern was for the viability of the new specimen. He decided he could not blame her for being characteristic of her own species. Still, the researcher’s query rankled slightly.

“No, she’s not fine.” He looked on intently as Bac’cul and several other members of the exploration team formed a curious, reverential semicircle behind Cherpa. Reassured by Ruslan, she studied them in turn, more curious now than afraid. She could not understand anything they were saying about her, of course. Language learning would take time. Meanwhile there would be mechanical translators, perfectly efficient thanks to Myssari technology and his assistance with corrections.