The Wait is Longer Than You Think Page 2

  “No you did not! Of all the rituals that humans find interesting those involving mating are the most fascinating.”

  “I did consider that,” Colophinanoc said, leaning back. “But given that the end result was just that she went to the repro-center—a common enough activity—I assumed you’d be let down.”

  “Well, yeah, but still, draw it out.”

  “I thought I would tie up that thread so I could focus on Kyolnican’s ongoing saga of hiding his culpability in the missing Hexacron Credit scheme.”

  ‘Saga’ was a big word, and certainly not the one that John would have picked, but again he appreciated the effort. “Okay, that’s fine. Go on.”

  “You’re doing the thing you do with your face when you’re mad.”

  “What thing?”

  Colophinanoc lifted a limb and touched John’s forehead with a cold digit. “That vertical crease in your skin. You do that when you look into the sun, when you calculate soft-shell nosh-bug hatch rates, and when you’re mad.” A second cold touch right under his hairline, “and this part, this tightens up when you’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” he said, backing away a step. “I swear.”

  “Also, you swear when you are mad.”

  He wasn’t mad, but he had been calculating. Six years, standard Earth measurement, for Colophinanoc to catch onto the boats. He hadn’t caught onto the gnawers in the walls yet. Seven and a half Earth years left until estimated rescue-day. “Look, I’m a little disappointed, that’s all.”

  “Well, from a troupe-monkey point of view things probably get more interesting after the hatchlings arrive and Trachinanaoc and Provnalic vie for adoption rights.”

  “Dammit, Colophinanoc!’

  The Kinri leveled off, turned and began marching back to the shelter.

  His calculations and tricks fled. “No, wait! I’m not mad, I’m just Joshin’!”

  Colophinanoc didn’t slow down, and John jogged back in front. “Seriously, I’m not-”

  The Kinri’s inner and outer mandibles were closed up tight—a classic look of confusion.

  Colophinanoc eased past him. “Your extra twenty minutes are up for this morning.”

  6.

  There were three things that Colophaninoc seemed to actually enjoy: accounting regarding their selective breeding program in the garden (after three Xephon years they had almost doubled the width of the edible part of the Xephon okra. … it had to be okra…), their fishing expeditions into Crashdown Lake (especially when they had to do the five-step method to lure out the toe-suckers and spear them), and the wide patrol.

  The wide patrol was more of an exercise thing, it was about a ten mile circuit, first east down the coastline of Crashdown Lake, then a turn north out into the plain, through Four Big Brush Bands and within sight of ‘Nyukle Head ridge, a turn west over the Five Feeder Creeks, and then eventually back south.

  Most times they went together, a six-hour trip if they didn’t stop for lunch, which they often did at Lunch Ledge. But Colophinanoc had lately been taking it alone. Mostly as an exercise thing, as he could run much faster than a human could. Three hours for him to take the run.

  Odd that for all the loneliness, John felt less alone when Colophinanoc was on long patrol. It was, he had come to think, the fact that the Kinri was less than 100 yards away from him most of the time that had really struck him. He was so close, and yet remained distant. One thing Colophinanoc had never said, in all their time together, was that he was glad John was here. That wasn’t 100% true. He had often said that he was glad he had a partner, a helper, that this had been easier since there were two of them as opposed to one. But he had never said he was glad for the company. That he liked John? Not one fucking time.

  John had, several times, enough that he hoped—to a Kinri at least—that he wasn’t coming across as creepy needy and stalky.

  He was almost certain that Colophinanoc went on these runs to get away from him, to get a little solitude. And sometimes the solitude reminded John that he indeed did need Colophinanoc. Needed him for another three Xephon years.

  Sometimes, at first, John had used the solitude to run the AI, but either Frank had ratted him out or the Kinri had figured out what he was doing. There had been argument, so he had to quit.

  Now John used the alone time to snoop a bit, just a bit, in Colophinanoc’s dorm. Human curiosity was something that the alien just hadn’t quite figured out. What was he looking for? A diary, maybe, or a voodoo doll of himself—anything really.

  He didn’t find anything. He never did.

  Sometimes, when he was really alone like this, the thoughts would come to him. The six ways he could kill himself. And those thoughts always led, damnably, to thinking of the dreams. Usually it was a stone, right into the joint where Colophinanoc’s dorsal anterior plate met with his posterior cephalic plate.

  Sometimes, in his dreams, he tips the boat and breaks each wormy limb and thick digit as Colophinanoc tries to struggle back in, before finally pushing him deep into the water and holding, and holding.

  He reminded himself, as he always did: “John, you will not engineer an accident for your only companion to relieve your boredom. No tripwires, no putting a hollow fern-log over Deep creek. You won’t put slick mud on that bit of trail that’s always in shade.”

  7.

  John was masturbating with the AI; carefully. Francine could be a real life-saver sometimes. The evening’s rain pelted on the shelter’s roof, providing a little extra cover. Still, he had to be careful, outside the room he could hear Colophinanoc moving around.

  8.

  John’s view of interstellar travel was common among the humans who had experienced it: it was like being stuck in a good hotel for three years. Well, he wasn’t trapped for the full three years, but the slow-metabolism meds only put you down for four months, and then you had to come out of it for about three weeks. Which, over the course of the trip would be eight slow-met intervals with seven three-week breaks; so he was trapped in a good hotel for a year plus. He was on his third break.

  Of course, the Medicine Bear Four was equipped for it but in nine weeks one could explore every bit of a huge vessel:the gardens; the theaters, the plazas, the libraries. John had opted to learn the obo, which was much more frustrating than it should have been. He was in dormitory K this time around, and had put himself on the list for a roommate.

  He was also on Cadre number 4’s soccer team to kill time, keep in shape, and try to recapture some of his youth. Post-practice, he and some of the team had gone to Nick’s Café Centaurian. It was a quite a place, as almost all such places were.

  Aethulwulf M’Tugana sat across from him. “I’ve watched some of the video of the Bright Blue Sun team,” she said, “it’s going to be some tough competition.”

  He had not watched the video of B2S cadre. Really, he was going to play, and he was bored but not so bored that he was willing to watch other teams practicing to try to get an edge. Teams they wouldn’t face off against for what? Three more months?

  But Aethulwulf was that kind of person, and since she was the most interesting thing he’d encountered in his wake cycles he pretended to be more interested than he really was.

  “Plenty of time to deal with B2S when the time comes,” he said, peaking his fingers together.

  Aethulwulf nodded. “More practice is always good, though,” she said. “And it’s true: they’ve got a Huzmavah on the team.”

  “Is that even within regulations?”

  She shrugged. “Well, they are too big to play with the Sendulians, and the Kinri don’t bother playing, so they gotta work in with us humans.”

  “Well, I worry that it might get a bad check or an accidental kick. Then it’ll—”

  An alarm blared. Yellow lights began to flash. An automated voice began a chant he knew all-too well. “Emergency! Please follow the yellow track to shelter.”

  “Christos!” Aethulwulf said, pushing away her plate and standing. “Another drill? Do they do this just to give us something to do?”

  “You got me,” he said, “I think they do at least one every wake-cycle, but this is at least the second one this time.” He stood and swept up his drink—you could get fined if you didn’t get to the shuttle fast enough.

  “You can get fined for taking that,” she said, nodding toward the new-olde-fashioned.

  “Way ahead of you!” he gulped it and dropped the glass on the last table before they hit the door.

  For a ship with only 1/5 of its passengers awake, the outer corridors filled up quickly. They followed the emergency lights along the wall. John nearly tripped over a pair of Sendulians and noted with a start that this time the lights were not directing them to the main tube, but had taken a hard right into a tertiary corridor.

  Their line met another and the corridor suddenly seemed too small, too crowded. Then the ship shook. Another turn and the lights turned from yellow to blue, indicating they were at the destination—but this wasn’t a platform for an emergency shuttle, instead the left wall of the hallway had dozens of round opening for lifeboats.

  Ahead of him, Aethulwulf ducked into a pod. In a few seconds, he got there, too. She, two other humans, and a Huzmavah crowded inside. He took a step and the Huzmavah extended a tendril—“Lifeboat’s at maximum,” it purred, another tendril pointing to the red lights around the entryway—yes. Of course, he’d passed the test and done at least two simulations, he should have remembered.

  The ship shook again, and he jogged down the corridor, passing red-lit door after red-lit door, he swung into the first green-rimmed opening he came to.

  A Kinri turned its bulky body and then its head toward him. Ordinarily, John would ask if there was space for one more, but in this case, he just plowe
d in. The Kinri backed up like John was armed. Oh man, it wasn’t going to like it when the lifeboat filled up—there was space for at least one or two more-

  The lights turned from green to red and the door slid shut. Outside, beings passed, running.

  The Kinri had said nothing. It, like John, had nothing but the clothes on its carapace. No, that wasn’t right, it had an AI pad, held in its squirmy digits.

  The Medicine Bear Four shook again. At last the Kinri spoke.

  “I do not think this is a drill.”

  9.

  One of the best things about the back-up shelter idea was its long-term usefulness. Building it had been a challenge but it also required maintenance, which meant that they had to go up there periodically and work on it. And whenever they went to work on it, they usually had that much more work to do on the main shelter by Crashdown Lake when they got back. So it was really a double-bonus. Colophinanoc seemed to enjoy the work and the maintenance and that was a triple bonus.

  Yet, for all its success, John found himself stressed. Everything was going fine, better than fine, really. But still, he was on edge. Grumpy. They were cooking up black-fin over the fire and the alien was going on and on about the spreadsheet issue of 3435. For the first time ever, John really wished that Colophinanoc would shut up.

  “Whelll,” John said, “I guess I’ll start turning in.”

  “You see the error was in cell D35,” Colophinanoc said, oblivious, “the logic string registry was an either-or, not an either-and.”

  He had been talking—droning really—about this from Knyucklehead bench all the way down to Crashdown Lake and well into the night.

  “Either, and. Got it. See you in the morning.”

  “Well, Kaspinnun just about locked mandibles with me when I pointed it out. Before I announced it at the 10:30 efficiency meeting I could tell he was aware that I was aware of something. Normally he gave me a good meter of space when we passed each other in the east hallway—the ones with the windows that I told you about. Where it gets really hot. Usually he gives me a meter, but today it was only maybe half of that. Same thing he had done when-”

  “I need to get some sleep, Colophinanoc,” John said, putting a little edge into his voice.

  “We will pick it up in the morning, then.”

  And the next morning as John’s annoyance grew into worry, they did.

  10.

  They actually had two AIs. Frank was a generalist—the closest you could get to a human mind in a box. Their first aid kit had an AI, too.

  A very dim-witted AI.

  “Symptoms,” John said, “include fugue, confusion, and a reversion to a childlike social level.”

  The AI answered: “Confusion regarding time, place, identity, or other?”

  Ten more minutes until Colophinanoc was through with his run. John checked his notes; what had he said last time? “Identity.”

  “Childlike social level indicates an infection by one or more of several pathogens. Most likely Estrella bacillus and Sphacelia segmentum”

  He worked through them both, playing twenty questions with the first aid AI. Estrella was unlikely. It usually resulted from an infected wound and the other symptoms were missing.

  But Sphacelia, that would match. It was already a part of the fauna of the vast majority of Kinri, and-- and this really gave it away—was more likely to spring out in a high-altitude environment. How high up was Knyucklhead ridge, where they had built their back-up shelter? High enough, just maybe.

  “Development?” he asked.

  “In the young it stunts social development. In adult Kinri it often goes unrecognized until it begins to lead to professional development hindrance due to an inability to focus extensively on a task.”

  “Treatment?”

  “Coranosol, five hundred milligrams.”

  John swallowed. “Lethality?”

  “Generally non-lethal. Immuno-compromised individuals may experience further mental impairment.”

  John sat and thought. Thought hard. Kirni went through a social phase, when they were hatchlings.

  Seven minutes later Colophinanoc returned, sides pulsing as he got his breath back.

  “A little slower than usual today?” John asked carefully.

  “A little.”

  “Do you remember how long we have until our next medical monitoring?”

  “Two months, ten days.”

  “Yeah…I’m thinking we should bump that up.”

  “If you advise it.”

  “I do. I’d hate to get so close to Rescue Day and then have one of us get sick or something.”

  John added two-hundred and fifty milligrams Coronasol to the cocktail of stuff they took tri-annually.

  11.

  At Crashdown Lake they very rarely needed fire except for cooking; up on Knyucklehead ridge the nights were colder, mostly because of the west winds, so a fire was necessary.

  He stretched out, knees complaining. Twelve years, earth-time. And it was starting to wear on him.

  “This highland Rock-Runner is excellent,” Colophinanoc said, taking another bite, shell and all.

  “It really is,” John agreed. “Remember when we tried to hunt them with spears?”

  “We are lucky neither of us broke a limb joint.”

  “Glad that we got the three-step box trap worked out. Good thinking on your part.”

  “Thank you.” The Kinri took another Rock-Runner and devoured it. “It is quite satisfying when a plan works out.”

  John looked up at the sky, brilliant with stars, with the twenty constellations they had named. There, where a bead of the Abacus shared a star with the clip of the Great Fountain Pen, that’s where the rescue ship would come in three more years. He thought, briefly, of cell counts and their medical monitoring. Of the casual rambling conversations like this one, of Colophinanoc trying to run Big Fin Arwen in Frank’s game.

  “Yes, Colophinanoc. Yes it certainly is.”

  12.

  John had a plan. Five months, that was his timeframe. Five months Xephon time, a little over a year and a quarter Earthwise. That’s when he’d give Colophinanoc the full dose of Coronasol. Maybe the techs would not be able to tell that Colophinanoc had a low-level infection for so long. He assumed that knocking it all out would leave Colophinanoc without any real damage. Not that he didn’t secretly hope that Colophinanoc had some residual effect: ‘juvenile social state’ would be a plus, at least until Rescue Day.

  13.

  “Yep,” John said, gently running his fingernail down the rope joint, sending a cloud of broken fibers “looks like we’ve had some kind of leak. Grass ropes are rotten clear through.”

  Outside the primary shelter, Colophinanoc stood on his mobility limbs, his great sloping body turned as well as it could to view the damage. Crashdown Lake splashed gently, as always, beyond. “We may have to replace the wood for both the awning beams and the support beams.”

  John dug a little deeper, the wood underneath was weak, not near as bad as the rope, and probably still had a lot of life left. Why hadn’t he thought of engineering something like that? Eh, it would give them something to do. “Yeah, it looks pretty weak.”

  “Where is the leak?”

  “Not sure.” The roof of Crashdown Mansion was made of thatch, and it was over the old emergency shelter from the pod. But from his angle he couldn’t see very far into the space between them. “We may have to take down the wall of the old shelter.”

  Colophinanoc’s antennae waved, with a little counterclockwise spin. “We may have to replace the wood from both the awning beams and the support beams.”

  “Well yeah, but on the old shelter, I’ve always worried that if we take it down we won’t be able to get it back up. Like we’ll tear something somehow. It’s aged well, but it has still aged.”

  Colophinanoc walked into the shelter, turned and looked at him. “We may have to replace the wood from both the awning beams and the support beams.”

  “I heard you the first time, Colophinanoc.”

  The alien turned, taking in the shelter. “We may have to rrrrrrreplace the wood from both the awning beams aaaaaaand the support beeeeeams.”

  “Hey!” John said, alarmed. “You okay? Colophin—” the alien surged forward, ramming him. John hit the ground hard, breath bursting from his body. He came to with the faded blue of the artificial fiber shelter waiting above him. Outside, Crashdown Lake sloshed and Colophinanoc spewed a stream of absolute gibberish. Gibberish crossed with spit, crossed with John’s world ending and three Xephon months being a lifetime away.