Chapter Fifteen
Life is about changes, and adapting to them.
—Tulyan Wisdom
Only moments before the arrival of the conducci, Tesh Kori and Anton Glavine ran through the front gate of the estate and hid in the thick woods outside. Flushed with anger and outrage, Tesh parted the leaves of an aixberry bush and peered through the red-leafed foliage. A groundjet stopped at the gate and waited for it to slide open slowly. These mercenaries had their own transmitter key.
It was a warm afternoon, with hardly any clouds in the azure blue sky. Beside her, Anton breathed hard from the exertion of running across the large compound. His brow glistened with perspiration. In contrast, Tesh showed no signs of physical effort. Parviis, who could survive in outer space without the necessity of any breathing apparatus, did not have cardiovascular systems. Rather, they were complex electrochemical creatures, with tiny, highly sophisticated neurological systems.
Six large men wearing black coats and tinted eyeglasses sat inside the oval-shaped vehicle, which discharged orange flames from the rear as it idled. To Tesh they looked like barroom brawlers, or street thugs. The tip telebeamed to her by a girlfriend had been correct. Dr. Bichette had hired muscle to bring her back to him … and had sent enough men to handle not only her, but Anton as well. Judging by the puissant rifles that Tesh saw in the rear of the passenger compartment, she judged that the men had been given strict orders to do whatever it took to accomplish the task.
She had long suspected that Bichette had a mean streak, and this confirmed it. Despite his attempts to show her a gentle, compassionate side she had seen behavioral lapses in him, moments when a darker aspect showed through and then scurried for cover, like a creature not wishing to be discovered. It had taken months for this nature to reveal itself, but it had not escaped her attention, as she noticed the way he treated servants and even his valuable tigerhorses when he didn’t know anyone was watching. Two of the animals in his stable had died of poisoning, and while he had insisted that it must have been committed by an intruder, he had also collected large insurance payments. Humans could be so unethical.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Anton said. He held a four-barrel handgun that he had grabbed on the way out of the palatial home.
“So do I,” she said. “Let’s go deeper into the woods. Maybe there’s a way out on the other side.”
Not a person to run from a fight, no matter the odds, Anton hesitated.
She tugged at his arm. “Come on!”
The groundjet roared fire and entered the compound. The gate closed behind it with a hard click of metal. Tesh and Anton scrambled deeper into the woods, tromping their way over thorny underbrush and through stands of gray and yellow-barked trees.
Ten minutes later they heard a commotion behind them, barking daggs and shouting men. A second vehicle must have arrived, carrying the animals. To Tesh they sounded like keanu tuskies, known to be fast and deadly. A hundred years ago she had seen one run down a fugitive and chew off his legs before handlers arrived to collect what was left. Ever since, the memory had been etched indelibly in her mind.
“Faster!” she said, without explaining what she knew.
Anton didn’t need any encouragement, but he had trouble keeping up with her. His hands were bloody from thorn bushes, but hers were not, since Parviis did not bleed.
Abruptly, Anton stopped and turned the other way. Kneeling, he flipped a toggle and pressed a button on the handgun. Flames belched out of all four barrels and ignited the tinder-dry underbrush. He scurried to one side and the other, setting up a wall of fire to block the pursuers.
Then he turned and rejoined her, where she awaited him. “That’ll slow ‘em down,” he said. “My dad and uncle were hunters and had a lot of guns, including a couple like this one … handy for flushing wild treegeese out in the open.”
“That doesn’t sound very sporting,” Tesh observed.
“Maybe not, but it works.”
The pair sprinted ahead, while fire raged behind them, turning the brush and trees into a popping, exploding conflagration. Birds screeched and flew off.
“We have a favorable wind direction,” Anton said. “It could switch on us, though. We need to hurry.”
She glanced longingly at her companion as he ran alongside her. He seemed to be in complete control and unafraid … capable of handling virtually any situation.
In the seven centuries of her life, Tesh had enjoyed countless sexual experiences with the males of almost every galactic race. Two of the most memorable had been a tryst with a Vakeen swordsman in the Dardar Sector and months of lovemaking with a handsome Ilakai merchant, who entertained her at his various chateaux around the galaxy.
She sighed, remembering her first physical relationship, with a powerful Adurian lord who looked like a humanoid ant, with bulbous eyes and puffy black cheeks. She had been little more than a child at the time, and he had been so ruggedly handsome, enhanced by the keloid scars on his face and arms. The touch of his antennae had been almost electric on her skin, so stimulating that she had been hard-pressed to find anyone afterward who was anywhere near his sexual equal.
Her current love interest, Anton Glavine, was perhaps the most perplexing of all. In her many relationships, she had learned a great deal about the various races and cultures, including Humans. But this was an entirely new experience for her. She found him intelligent, sensitive, and extremely irritating. With males, she was used to getting her own way.
Their first night of lovemaking had been passionate, but nowhere near the most stimulating of her life. Still, the sexual experience had been adequate, and she’d wanted to continue the episodes, hoping they would improve with time. After that, though, Anton had refused to make love to her again, saying he’d made a regrettable mistake with her. He said he wanted to get to know her better before repeating what they had done.
“But it was so wonderful,” she’d told him in exaggeration, blinking her emerald green eyes. She and Anton had been in the living room of the main house, sitting in front of a warm, cheery fireplace. Tesh had set it all up, even providing wine to lower his resistance.
With surprising determination, Anton had said, “I like to be in control of myself, and with you around that presents a challenge.”
Then he put down his wineglass and gave her a hard stare, as if he could see through her superficiality. He seemed to look deep into her soul with his penetrating hazel eyes … through her personal magnification system to the tiny Parvii inside. Of course that was impossible, but she had been unnerved, and bewildered. He was not like any Human male she had ever encountered; instead he behaved more in the manner of a Human female, who typically wanted to develop an emotional relationship before becoming intimate.
Things were topsy-turvy. Tesh was even playing more the part of a Human male, as she pursued him aggressively. But she was not a humanus ordinaire, and could not be judged in the terms of that race. As a Parvii, she had her own ways, her own traditions and genetic makeup that drove her actions. She was not sure how to control this man; the more time she spent with him the more she wanted him, and the more he befuddled her.
Privately, she had to admit that she rather liked his gallantry, the way he treated her with courtesy and respect. He showed great bravery in the face of danger as well, and a strong desire to protect her from harm. She could outrun him, but usually held herself back and checked to see how he was doing.
Behind them, the keanu tuskies yelped in confusion. “The smoke of the fire is interfering with their ability to smell,” he explained. “My uncle used them for hunting daggs, and said that was their weakness.”
Tesh smelled the acrid odor of the fire.
“The wind is changing!” Anton shouted. He pointed down a steep, brushy hill, toward a small lake. “I think we’ve lost the daggs, but we need to get into the water.”
Suddenly Tesh heard a loud noise overhead, and peered up through an opening in the trees. A green-and-brown grid-plane hovered above them for several moments, profiled against the sky, and then flew back toward the fire. She heard the popping of the flames, and loud hissing noises.
“That’s a Guardian aircraft,” he said “They’re a bunch of radical environmentalists, and wouldn’t be happy if they found out I started the fire. They’re always patrolling Canopa, like self-proclaimed eco-police.”
“You make them sound kooky.”
“Actually, I admire them. I wouldn’t have set fire to the woods if we weren’t in a life or death situation. For days I’ve seen their spotter craft operating in the area, and hoped they would show up here … but not too soon. I just wanted to use the fire as a temporary shield, without causing too much damage. They’ll put it out now.”
“I see.”
He helped her down a steep embankment, over granite boulders and through thorny bushes. The lake was only a short distance away, deep blue in a rock bowl.
The aircraft noise returned, and Tesh saw the same Guardian grid-plane fly low over the lake. Pontoons emerged from the undercarriage, and the aircraft set down on the water with a splash, near the closest shore. A hatch opened in the fuselage, and a reptilian creature stepped out onto the short wing. Larger than a Human, he had bronze, scaly skin and a protruding snout. He wore a green-and-brown uniform.
“One of the Tulyans who work for Noah Watanabe,” Tesh said, identifying a race that was at least as ancient as, and perhaps even older, than her own … going all the way back to the earliest known days of galactic habitation.
“I’m familiar with them,” Anton said in a low tone, “but I’ve never seen one this close. I hear they are non-violent?”
“That is correct.”
“Hurry,” the Tulyan said in a throaty voice. He motioned with one arm, which seemed too small for his substantial body.
Anton and Tesh looked at each other for a moment, then waded through cold water to the grid-plane and boarded it.
“What a coincidence,” Anton said to the Tulyan as the two passengers found seats in the rear of the craft. “We were just on our way to see Noah Watanabe and volunteer as Guardians.”
“We were?” Tesh said, surprised.
“I wanted to surprise you,” Anton said. “Noah and I go way back.”
The Tulyan looked at him skeptically through slitted, pale gray eyes, and said, “Your friends were asphyxiated by the fire. One of our crews picked up their bodies.”
Tesh wanted to say they weren’t friends, but caught Anton’s hard stare and read the message there. It was best not to say anything about being chased, or about starting the fire.
The reptilian man identified himself as Ifnattil, and said he was a caretaker, responsible for protecting the natural resources in this region. With no further comment, he plopped his large body into a specially-designed pilot’s seat and began tapping the instrument panel with stubby fingers. The grid-plane lifted off with a smooth whir into the smoky sky.
“Noah was a friend of my parents,” Anton told Tesh. “Just working-class people, but he always took a special interest in me when I was growing up. Noah is seventeen years older than I am, like a big brother to me. I told him I wanted to join the Guardians someday, and engage in his style of environmental warfare.”
Tesh grinned, and curled an arm around Anton’s waist. “It looks like that someday is now,” she said.