"Max Stearn," I guess. "The Buldahk Insurrection."
"Quite a security check you people do." The captain is silent for a long time. When he at last speaks there is a choking sound in his voice. "Do you understand the love of a man for a man?"
"No."
His eyes narrow and his nostrils flare. "Who in the hell are you to judge, Drac?"
An enormous sadness fills me. "I make no judgments, captain. You ask me if I understand the love of a man for a man and I do not. Neither do I understand the love of a man for a woman, the love of a woman for a woman, nor the love of a Drac for a Drac. Love of any kind is something outside my comprehension. What I need to have in order to understand was burned out of me."
The man stares at me for a moment, his eyebrows raised. As he gets to his feet he says, "Hell, Drac, you’re riding a nightmare bigger than mine." He places a gentle hand on my shoulder, looks at me for a moment, and leaves the cockpit. I am left alone with the stars.
Later, as Reaper adjusts the controls to the suspension pod, I look to see if the captain is getting into his pod. No other pods are open. "When does the captain go into suspension?"
Reaper shakes his head. "He doesn’t. Not ever." The big man holds up a player button. "That Davidge was finished with this when Yora did the maint on his box. He said you might want to wrap your lobes around it."
"What is it?"
Reaper looks at a wrinkled scrap of paper. "I can’t make this out too good. Timan something. Surviving, I think. It’s by a Drac. You want me to switch it?"
"Yes." While Reaper is inserting the new button in the player, I ask, "When you were in that mercenary unit with Captain Moss, who were you fighting?"
Reaper looks up, pursed his lips, then looks back at the player. "Dracs in the two rebellions in the Lota System; Dracs, humans, and Vikaans when we went after the Nadok Rim Pirates; and humans in the Freeholder Invasion on Earn."
"Thank you. Although you seem to be unusually free with your answers―for an Ilcheve."
Reaper shrugs and says with a big smile. "I got nothing to hide, and neither do you. When you people get ready to go to Amadeen, let me know." His smile turns into a big grin. "I don’t do suspension, either, Ro. Gives me all the time I need to go through everybody’s things. Happy dreams."
I glance at Falna, close my eyes, and try to relax as the pod is again sealed and the new words and strange thought patterns begin playing in my mind. As they play, a detached part of my awareness wonders if Reaper was joking.
TWENTY-THREE
There is a joke the Timans tell. A human, a Drac, and a Timan are locked in a chamber. The human’s task is to stab the Drac. The Drac’s task is to stab the human. The Timan’s task is to befriend both the human and the Drac and supply the cutlery.
Their jokes are teachings that prompt the young to witness and understand certain truths. The principal truth is: to survive, the Timan must turn force against itself, the Timan never revealing its own role.
As a civilized species the Timans are younger even than the humans and much younger than the Dracs. Even so, each one of their "jokes" has undergone many transformations. Before the human and the Drac stabbing each other, the joke read: "There was a Rilgian, a Khirat, and a Timan locked in a chamber…" That was eleven hundred standard years ago. The Rilgians no longer exist. The few remaining Khirats are little more than curiosities on a number of Timan-administered planets.
The reaction of Timans to one of their own jokes, no matter how many times and in how many variations they have heard it, is the same. Massive gray heads nod in approval at the wisdom while a diminutive sucking of wide purplish lips perform the Timan equivalent of smirking. Timans do not laugh nor do they have an equivalent reaction. Neither do they cry, display anger, or show pain or disappointment. It is not that they are incapable of such displays. Such are repressed, however, as being too revealing. The Timans are divided into two castes: the teachers, who are addressed by name followed by "'do Timan," which means "for Timan," and everyone else. The 'do Timan is awarded by a teacher to an especially excellent student, making the student himself a teacher. The most respected academic institute on Timan is the Ri Mou Tavii, the school where Estone Falna earned its 'do Timan.
Timans live in nests of genetically related groups of thirty to forty containing one to three females whose only functions, and abilities it appears, are to eat and make little Timans. The organization of the home nest has been carried into all social institutions. Timan males are obsessed with puzzles, which is reflected in their games, their art, their music, and their behavior in business, government, and diplomacy.
The Drac who wrote the book Timan Survival is named Vigas Thorm. Thorm is an academic on Draco who has never been to Timan.
Once more the resurrection, this time administered by Yora Beneres. Something different this time. I am not the only one out of suspension. We are close to Timan and all of the pods are open. After the gunk is removed from my eyes, I see Falna sitting up in its suspension pod, working its neck muscles to loosen them. "Falna?"
It looks at me and answers, "Yes?"
"On Timan. What was the Ri Mou Tavii like?"
Falna stares at the deck for an instant, squints its eyes, and shakes its head. "Depressing. Very depressing." It struggles out of the pod, stands weaving on the deck, and stumbles toward the shower.
As the door on the airlock opens, allowing Timan’s poisonous atmosphere to enter, I look through my suit’s view plate at the three Timans standing there in clouds of choking gas. The smaller of the three is named Atruin 'do Timan and he represents Timan Nisak to Willis Davidge and his entourage. In excellent English he introduces his two companions, Pritith and Riniseh. Despite the purported Timan abhorrence of violence, at least the kind that involves them personally, it is apparent that Pritith and Riniseh are personal bodyguards. They appear capable of backing up their instinctive social manipulations with fists and whatever weapons are concealed within their brown and gray robes.
Davidge introduces his "entourage," Kita, Ty, Falna, and myself, the crew having already left the ship headed for Timan’s limited Indulgence Zone for oxynitro breathers. After that comes the Timan’s formal greeting: "I approach you in peace with no motive or weapon hidden. Welcome to Timan, to my hearth, and to my place of business."
Davidge steps forward and in English replies, "I stand here in doubt, the heat of a Timan weapon still burning my skin, a weapon meant to kill me and my charge, Yazi Ro."
Davidge nods toward me and I watch as the Timan’s tiny white eyes grow wide. Atruin 'do Timan waves aside his greetings with a fleshy arm and bows his head. "I am very distressed by this, sir. What can I do to clear the doubt between us?"
Davidge gestures at the bulkheads with a suited hand. "Words have no leashes."
The Timan holds the palms of its irregularly fingered hands out to indicate his understanding. "We should go where they cannot wander." Davidge bows in approval to the suggestion and Atruin 'do Timan leads us down a ramp into a dimly illuminated passage that arrives at a huge, sleek blue vehicle that opens itself, allowing us to enter and seat ourselves in the plush black couches inside. Atruin takes his seat with us and leaves his two protectors to ride outside the compartment, a gesture of great trust on the Timan’s part, according to Timan Survivor. Once the doors are closed and locked, Atruin says, "Nisak, dark and quiet." At that the windows opaque, the sounds from outside the compartment blank, and the vehicle begins accelerating toward the company nest.