I WAS VERY HUNGRY
1563 4D
He found an unlighted crawlpipe, ceilinged with conduits, that took him up a long slope past a surface access chamber. As he struggled into the chamber, his elbows raw, a living presence, a warmth in the dark, presented itself. He froze, drawing air in slowly, testing the spectrum of aromas. A soft breath like a stifled sob sounded in his ears. He waited. The smell — the shadow flickered at him again. Overhead, the alarm faded away. He felt in the uniform pocket for a chemtorch. Nothing. A grating liquid voice choked at him, “Come here.”
“Who are you?” Jeddin whispered. His fingers found the corpo‘s beam gun. Teeth, long teeth; he fought to hold the fragment of recollection.
“You’d be surprised,” the voice gurgled, “Very surprised, since you killed me. Or tried to.”
“You don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who or what you are,” Jeddin said, drawing the weapon.
“You smell me. I smell you. Same thing.”
“I’ve never smelled you… at least, not here.” Jeddin aimed the beam gun at the center of the warmth. A pattern formed in his mind: the route he had taken from the shrubs, the dive out the window, his zigzag underground. Aha.
He had returned to where he had dumped the corpo‘s body down the hatch. His blood stood still in his veins for a second. This had to be the body of the man he had killed. “What are you? Tell me before I have to kill you again.”
“If you do that in here, you’ll die, and you know it. The alarm is out.” The voice seemed somehow clearer.
“I’ll escape them,” Jeddin said. “Talk to me. Are you an alien? In that man’s body?” Jeddin‘s fear and excitement fought for control.
“He’s still alive. I got him started again after you choked his aorta. Nice job you did. Strong hands, made a mess of his heart and his ribcage. But I kept his gut from letting go.” The voice began to sound more like the man Jeddin had killed. “Now I want something from you. You’re not human, right? Or are you?”
“Andro.”
“Yes. I can see you awake, in another place here.”
Jeddin‘s heart jumped. Innerspace. He had stayed away from it, keeping his focus tightly on the events around him. Now he looked inside himself,
and the light rose around him, and two figures appeared nearby. One, a man, lay quietly sleeping among undulating shifting colors of blossoms that crooned. White as the sun, standing over the first one, the other figure wore a wrap that glowed and shifted like an unconsuming fire. The standing figure seemed more woman than man.
It spoke again. “That’s better. I’ve been waiting here for you. I’m hungry.” While Jeddin stood openmouthed, it reached out with a long shining arm, seized him by the throat, and dragged him close. Jeddin couldn’t move. As he stared off, unable to speak, the white figure, smiling, placed its teeth on his throat. Now he remembered.
As its jaws tightened, it stopped. A look of surprise grew on its radiant face. “No! I can’t. You have human sentattar! And far too much of it for me to… How did this happen?” It dropped Jeddin carelessly to the sweet grass of the innerspace garden, and turned its glorious face away. His strength returned. The figure bent and caressed the sleeping man’s head. Then it turned to Jeddin and bent to touch him. Jeddin drew back in fear. “I won’t hurt you now,” the figure said.
“Because I’m human? But I’m not. I’m an andro.” Jeddin‘s mind raced. Could he get back to the chamber and kill the thing before it stopped him?
“No, you’re not. Not altogether.”
“What?”
“You’re part human.”
“No. I remember the vat I grew in.”
“You don’t remember a childhood?”
“Of course I do. But that was implanted. The vat was real.” The recollections coursed through Jeddin.
“How do you know which one was real?”
“I…" Jeddin‘s mind raced, blocked the question out. Undecidable. “What’s sentattar?”
“It is what makes people not be food.”
The sleeping figure stirred, and opened its eyes. It stared around blindly.
“He is healed now. We should return to the place we were,” the figure said. It sank into darkness, Jeddin followed,
and the damp air of the chamber surrounded them once more. The shining figure had vanished, but heavy breathing echoed, and then a man’s voice muttered, “What? I’m alive? Where am I?” A pause, and then, “He’s here? The andro? Oh.”
“Yes, I’m here, with your gun,” Jeddin said. “And I know your friend there. I won’t hurt you, and I won’t tell anyone your secret.”
“Where are we?”
“In an access chamber under the campus. How about getting us out of the area? They’re looking for me.”
“I’m going to report this as soon as I can,” the man said. His breath came in gasps as if he exerted himself, in pain.
“No, you’re not. I know what you’re carrying inside you. One word from me and they’ll take you apart. I’m nothing to them. But you’d be a prize, you and your alien.”
“Damn you.” Another pause, heavy breaths, some rustling, and then: “All right. But… my clothes.”
“I’m wearing them over mine. Just a minute.” Jeddin stripped the uniform off and in the darkness fumbled it to the man. “Sorry about the wear and tear.”
They waited until dark. Jeddin said little at first. He replayed the conversations of the day. Where would he find out more about monopoles? He knew someone in the City, was it in Naga Zone? Werten, that was the name.
With this episode, he’d find safe travel much harder. His stomach, not fed for half a day, contracted into a sullen knot. He avoided innerspace, not wanting to see this shining creature that seemed to invade him with knowing light even as it stood back. What had it done to the man, how had it brought him back to life? Pain stabbed Jeddin as he remembered his own resurrection.
Since that time, he’d sensed new aromas to his sweat and semen, deeper feelings. Had it been the virus he carried, with its fever, or the rebirth? Or both? The alien was wrong about his past, but…
Jeddin spoke to the man waiting in the access chamber with him. “How long have you had that… partner in you?”
The man grunted. “None of your business.”
“Look, I died, and someone… brought me back too. I just wondered—“
“You too?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll show you the marks when we leave here.”
“Just leave me alone. Andro.” Spat out.
Jeddin focused to innerspace, keeping a sliver of his attention on the outside world of the tunnel. Inside, the alien shone at him; the figure of the man still slept, here. “Talk to him,” Jeddin said.
The alien touched the man’s image on the arm. “Come on, Sarr. He’s telling the truth.”
The man named Sarr spoke, his voice echoing in the tunnel in the outer world. “Look, why didn’t you just let me die? Making me feel good doesn’t make up for what you’ve cost me.”
The alien drew back. “I’ve done my best,” it said. “I thought you’d be happy with me here. That’s what Portaluce thought, too.”
Jeddin asked, “Who is Portaluce?”
“She’s dead. The people killed her. She was a breeder, a carrier,” the alien said. “She found hosts for us.”
“Yeah,” Sarr‘s voice said in the tunnel, “but she didn’t tell me about eating other people.”
Jeddin‘s spine crawled. The alien spoke. “You didn’t mind after you got used to it.”
“It was Kerrina. I loved her.”
“Yes, but you started chewing on her while you made love… and I was very hungry… and she’d lost her sentatttar, you know—“
“We’ve been through this,” said Sarr, “so just drop it. You’ll never make it up to me with this shit.” Silence followed.
Jeddin pondered. So now he had sentattar, whatever that was. It made him human to the aliens, something more than food. Had his virus changed him? Jeddin thought back over all the people he had been with since then: Zalles, Grendel, others. Had any of them caught something from him? How would he know?
The shining figure stood looking at him, its arms folded. “What are you?” Jeddin asked. “What do you look like outside a human?”
“We take different forms,” the alien said. “It all depends. In the city, we wear skin and shell. Other places, other bodies.”
“Why don’t you look like you do right here?”
“Too startling for humans. We keep it from you… from andros as well.” The figure turned away, spread its arms, and raced away into the azure sky, twisting like an arrow. It did not return.
