The Butcher nodded. "Yes. But I am what?"
Fog closed over the view-port, misting stars and the Yiribian ship. "That's a question only you can answer."
"You must be important too," the Butcher mused, "because the brain has overheard that you are."
“Good boy!"
Suddenly he put his hand on her cheek. The cock's spur rested lightly on her lower lip. "You and I," the Butcher said. He moved his face close to hers. "Nobody else is here. Just you and I. But which is which?"
She nodded, cheek moving on his fingers. "You're getting the idea." His chest had been cool; his hand was warm. She put her hand on top of his. "Sometimes you frighten me."
"I am me," the Butcher said. "Only a morphological difference, yes? The brain figure that out before. Why does you frighten me sometimes?"
"Do frighten. A morphological correction. You frighten me because you rob banks and put knife handles in people's eyes, Butcher!"
"You do?" Then his surprise left. "Yes, you do, don't you. You forgot."
"But I didn't," Rydra said.
"Why does that frighten I? . . . correction, me."
"Because it's something I've never done, never wanted to do, never could do. And I like you, I like your hand on my cheek, so that if you suddenly decided to put a knife handle in my eye, well—"
"Oh. You never would put a knife handle in my eye," the Butcher said. "I don't have to worry."
"You could change your mind."
"You won't." He looked at her closely.
"I don't really think you're going to kill me. You know that. I know that. It's something else. Why don't I tell you something else that frightened me? Maybe you can see some pattern and you will understand then. The brain is not stupid."
His hand slid to her neck, and there was concern in his puzzled eyes. She had seen it before the moment he'd turned from the dead fetus in the biology theater. "Once. . ." she began slowly, ". . .well, there was a bird."
"Birds frighten me?"
"No. But this bird did. I was just a kid. You don't remember being a kid, do you? In most people what you were as a kid has a lot to do with what you are now."
"And what I am too?"
"Yes, me too. My doctor had gotten this bird for me as a present. It was a myna bird, which can talk. But it doesn't know what it's saying. It just repeats like a tape recorder. Only I didn't know that. A lot of times I know what people are trying to say to me, Butcher. I never understood it before, but since I've been on Tarik, I've realized it's got something to do with telepathy. Anyway, this myna bird had been trained to talk by feeding it earthworms when it said the right thing. Do you know how big an earthworm is?"
"Like so?"
"That's right. And some of them even run a few inches longer. And a myna bird is about eight or nine inches long. In other words an earthworm can be about five-sixths as long as a myna bird, which is what's important. The bird had been trained to say: Hello, Rydra, it's a fine day out and I'm happy. But the only thing this meant in the bird's mind was a rough combination of visual and olfactory sensations that translated loosely, There's another earthworm coming. So when I walked into the greenhouse and said hello to this myna bird, and it replied, ‘Hello, Rydra, it's a fine day and I'm happy', I knew immediately it was lying. There was another earthworm coming, that I could see and smell, and it was this thick and five-sixths as long as I was tall. And I was supposed to eat it. I got a little hysterical. I never told my doctor, because I never could figure exactly what happened until now. But when I remember, I still get shaky."
The Butcher nodded. "When you left Rhea with the money, you eventually holed up in a cave in the ice-hell of Dis— You were attacked by worms, twelve foot ones. They burrowed up out of the rocks with acid slime on their skins. You were scared, but you killed them. You rigged up an electric net from your hop-sled power source. You killed them, and when you knew you could beat them, you weren't afraid any more. The only reason you didn't eat them was because the acid made their flesh toxic. But you hadn't eaten anything else for three days."
"I did? I mean . . . you did?"
"You are not frightened of the things I am frightened of, I am not frightened of the things you are frightened of. That's good isn't it?"
"I guess so."
Gently he leaned his face against hers, then pulled away, and searched her face for a response.
"What is it that you're frightened of?" she asked.
He shook his head, not in negation but in confusion, as she saw him trying to articulate. "The baby, the baby that died," he said. "The brain afraid, afraid for you, that you would be alone."
"How afraid that you would be alone. Butcher?"
He shook his head again.
"Loneliness is not good."
She nodded.
"The brain knows that. For a long time it didn't know, but after a while it learned. Lonely on Rhea, you were, even with all the money. Lonelier on Dis; and in Titin, even with the other prisoners, you were loneliest of all. No one really understood you when you spoke to them. You did not really understand them. Maybe because they said I and you so much, and you just now are beginning to learn how important you are and I am."
"You wanted to raise the baby yourself so he would grow up and . . . speak the same language you speak? Or at any rate speak English the same way you spoke it?"
"Then both not be alone."
"I see."
"It died," Butcher said. He grunted once again, "But now you are not quite so alone. I teach you to understand the others, a little. You're not stupid, and you learn fast."
Now he turned fully toward her, rested his fists on her shoulder and spoke gravely. "You like me. Even when I first came on Tarik, there was something about me that you liked. I saw you do things I thought were bad, but you liked me. I told you how to destroy the Invaders defense net, and you destroyed it, for me. I told you I wanted to go to the tip of the Dragon's Tongue, and you saw that I get there. You will do anything I ask. It's important that I know that."
"Thank you. Butcher," she said wonderingly.
"If you ever rob another bank, you will give me all the money."
Rydra laughed. "Why, thank you. Nobody ever wanted to do that for me. But I hope you don't have to rob—"
"You wilt kill anyone that tries to hurt me, kill them a lot worse than you ever killed anyone before."
"But you don't have to—"
"You will kill all of Tarik if it tries to take you and I apart and keep us alone."
"Oh, Butcher—" She turned from him and put her fist against her mouth. “One hell of a teacher I am! You don't understand a thing—I—I am talking about."
The voice, astonished and slow: "I don't understand you, you think."
She turned back to him. "But I do, Butcher? I do understand you. Please believe that. But trust me that you have a little more to learn."
"You trust me," he said firmly-"Then listen. Right now we've met each other halfway. I haven't really taught you about you. We've made up our own language, and that's what we're talking now."
"But . . ."
"Look, every time you've said you in the last ten minutes, you should have said I. Every time you've said I, you meant you."
He dropped his eyes to the floor, then raised them again, still without answer.
"What I talk about as I, you must speak of as you. And the other way around, don't you see?"
"Are they the same word for the same thing, that they are interchangeable?"
"No, just. . . yes, they both mean the same sort of thing. In a way they're the same."