Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

Lamra did not always recognize sarcasm. It escaped her this time. Even had she caught it, she would have paid it no mind, not when it came along with Reatur’s other news. A human dead! She had not even been sure humans could die. “Which one is dead?” she asked anxiously; three of the strange creatures had become closer friends of hers than anybody save Reatur.

“The one called Frank,” he answered. Lamra knew relief- she had hardly even seen that one.

Still, she said, “How sad for the humans. There were so few of them even before.”

Reatur angrily jerked his arms. He started to turn yellow. “It will be sad for us if we can’t push the cursed Skarmer back down the gorge. If this domain gets a new master, a Skarmer master, your budlings will never live to grow up. And you-if you do live but we lose, what would a Skarmer chieftain make of you? Nothing good, I tell you that.”

Lamra tried to keep herself from turning blue. She hadn’t thought about any of the things Reatur had said, and they all sounded terrifying. “We have to win, then,” she said at last. “We will. We have you, and the Skarmer don’t.” Even as she said that, she saw herself greening up again. Reatur, she was convinced, could handle anything.

“I wish it were that simple.” The domain master sighed. “I came to see you to get away from my worries, and here I’ve given them to you instead. You’re brave for not fussing about them.”

He widened himself to her, then left before she could figure out how to respond. The boom of the door closing after him sounded very final.

Pat Marquard stumbled as she walked toward the latest pennedeloc mate on the point of budding. “Careful,” Irv said. He had said it several times already-wherever her eyes were focused, it was not on the ground under her feet.

“Sorry,” she answered. Her voice sounded far away. She did not look at him.

Sarah said gently, “It’s all right if you want to go back to the ship, Pat.” Irv nodded.

Thinking about how to reply brought Pat back toward the here-and-now. She shook her head. “If I don’t have anything to do, I’ll go even crazier than I am now. I’d rather try to work than just sit and brood.”

Sarah glanced toward Irv. He nodded again-he would have said the same thing. His wife shrugged. They walked on. Irv wondered how much they were going to accomplish. For one thing, they hadn’t kept a mate alive yet. For another, if the invaders from the west won, the future for which they were trying to save Lamra would prove depressingly short.

Irv also thought about Oleg Lopatin. Tolmasov sounded as anxious to be rid of him as was everyone on Athena. He must have flipped out, Irv thought for the umpty-umpth time. That was very bad, especially if some of the Russians had been worried enough about him to try to warn the American ship. And especially since he had his rifle with him.

Irv did not want to go up against a Kalashnikov, not even with six pistols-no, five now. “How are we going to fight back?” he asked Sarah, quietly, so Pat would not notice. Sarah only shook her head. Irv wondered whether that meant she didn’t know or she didn’t want to think about it now. Probably both.

The eloc mate in the pen was used enough to humans that it did not try to attack or waddle away as the three of them came up. It only turned one extra eyestalk in their direction.

“Now we wait,” Sarah said grimly. By the look of things, Irv thought, they would not have to wait long. The eloc mate bulged like a fat lady trying to explode out of a spandex suit. Irv had learned, though, that as with pregnant women, appearances could be deceiving. Once they had spent three cold days waiting for a mate to drop her budlings, only to come back the next morning to find the small eloca scampering about the pen and the mate dead.

Waiting had been easier then, before-before Frank died, Irv told himself firmly. He did not know Oleg Lopatin had killed him. It was, however, a lot likelier than anything else he could think of.

And no matter how Frank had died, he was dead now, and Pat no longer the bantering companion she had been. She kept pacing back and forth in the pen with that distant look in her eyes. Sometimes she answered when Irv or Sarah spoke to her, sometimes she didn’t. The other two couldn’t just talk with each other, either, not with her there. Time stretched endlessly.

After what seemed like six weeks but was in fact two and a half hours, Sarah, who had been peering and poking at the eloc mate so often it wasn’t even resentful anymore, abruptly stood up straight. “The skin is starting to split. Let’s get ready.”

Irv squatted next to the eloc mate, two arms around it on Sarah’s left. Pat came more slowly and squatted with two arms around the eloc on Sarah’s fight, so the three humans were equally spaced around it.

“We’ll try it a little differently this time,” Sarah said, reminding them of what they were about. “Instead of just trying to bandage those bleeders, we’re going to shut ‘em off. Here.”

She passed two large surgical clamps to Irv, two more to Pat. “As soon as the budlings drop off, clamp the protruding blood vessel stumps. You’ll need both hands for the job, so don’t try to do ‘em both at once. Do one, then the other, quick as you can without making a mistake. The way the blood comes gushing out, a whole lot of fumbling and you’ll be too late to do much good.”

Remembering how Biyal had bled out, remembering how he had watched several eloc and massi mates pour their blood onto the ground-and onto him-Irv knew his wife was fight. He opened and closed a clamp several times.

The eloc grew placid-resigned was the other word that crossed Irv’s mind, though he knew that was anthropomorphizing-as the budding process went on. The split in the skin above each bud grew longer and longer. Soon Irv saw the wet legs and bottoms of the two budlings in front of him. The legs were already wiggling, as if the newborn eloc were preparing to hit the ground running.

“Soon, now,” Sarah breathed. Irv glanced over at her for a split second, suppressing a grin-she was nervously opening and closing a clamp, too. Veterinary OB was not what she had studied in med school. She did not notice him. “Soon,” she said again.

Irv saw she was right. Now just about all of each budling was visible; he could see the blood vessels between their eyestalks that connected them to the mate, could see the much bigger vessels around which their mouths were sealed. The big ones were the ones he had to worry about. The bleeding from the others could be handled. Sarah thought so, anyhow, and Irv had nothing but respect for his wife’s judgment.

As it had before, the moment came without warning. One instant, the budlings were still attached to the mate. The next, they were at Irv’s feet, doing their best to get in his way. The mate’s blood fountained out.

Irv had practiced what he was going to do countless times back on Athena. Grabbing and clamping a piece of rubber tube, though, was not nearly enough like reaching for a blood vessel when spurting gore not only made it hard for him to see what he was doing but also froze his fingers as it splashed over and between them.

The last time he had done such blind groping, he thought, he had been fifteen and had gotten slapped for it. He let out a grunt of triumph as his left hand closed round the big, soft, pulsing vessel. He squeezed, hard. The flow slowed. He slapped on the clamp.

He felt like shouting-the vessel was sealed. But no time for shouts. How much blood had the mate already lost where the other budling had dropped free? Too much? Only one way to find out. He leaned, grabbed, and after a few desperate fumbling seconds, clamped.

Then he had a chance to look up. Sarah had finished her part of the task just seconds before him. That made him feel proud- he was very much an amateur at this sort of thing. But then, with Minervans, so was everyone.