The worst of these times slowly passed away. There were still only brief periods of consciousness, but during them the pain had now subsided to a dull ache. His vision was blurred, but the strong, cool arm about his shoulders, supporting him so he could drink, could have only been that of Inlènu*. A constant attendant, he thought, constant attendant. He laughed at the idea, he didn’t know why, as he drifted off again.
This timeless period came to an indefinite finish one day when he found himself conscious but unable to move. It wasn’t that he was held down or bound in any way, just that a terrible weakness was pressing him flat. He found that he could move his eyes, but they hurt when he did it bringing inadvertent tears. Inlènu* was beside him, sitting comfortably back on her tail, staring at nothing with silent pleasure. With great effort he managed to croak out the single word, water, unable to make the accompanying body motions to indicate that he wished some water to be brought to him. Inlènu*’s nearest eye rolled towards him while she considered his meaning. Eventually his intent became obvious, even to her, and she stirred and went to bring him the gourd. She raised him so he could drink. He slurped, then coughed, dropping back exhausted but conscious. There was a movement at the entrance and Akotolp swam into his vision.
“Did I hear it speak?” she asked and Inlènu* signed an affirmative. “Very good, very good,” the scientist said, bending over to look at him. Kerrick blinked as her fat features, heavy wattles swaying, swam into view like a rising moon.
“You should be dead,” she said with some satisfaction. “And you would be dead had I not been here. Move your head to show how grateful you are for that.”
Kerrick managed a slight motion of his jaw and Akotolp accepted it as her due. “A frightening disease, raging through your entire system: those sores on your skin are the least part of it. The fargi wouldn’t touch you, too stupid to realize that an infection like this is species specific, had to tend you myself. Most interesting. Had I not worked with warm-fleshed ustuzou in the past your death would have been certain.”
While she talked, mostly for her own benefit, Akotolp changed the dressings on his body. This was moderately painful, but nothing like the pain that he had felt before. “Some of the ustuzou we captured had the same disease, in a milder form. Antibodies from their youth. You had none. I exsanguinated the sickest one completely, made a serum, did the job. There, finished. Now eat something.”
“How… long…” Kerrick managed to whisper the words.
“How long the food? How long the antibodies? Are you still delirious?” Kerrick managed to move his hand in the motion of time significance. “Understood. How long have you been ill? Very long, I did not keep track. It is not important. Now drink this, you need protein, you’ve lost a third of your bodyweight, it is delicious meat enzymed to liquid, most digestible.”
Kerrick was too weak to protest. Though he did gag on the repulsive liquid before he managed to get some down. After that he slept, exhausted. But this had been the turning point. The disease was over, he was on the mend. He had no visitors, other than the fat scientist, nor did he want any. Memories of the Tanu that he had talked to turned over and over in his mind. No, not Tanu, ustuzou, degenerate, warm-fleshed killers. Flesh of his flesh. Tanu. The same people, the same creatures. He had a double-identity that he could not understand and he fought to make sense of it all. Of course he was Tanu himself, since he had been brought here when he was very young. But that had happened so long ago, so much had happened to him since that all memory of this had vanished. He was left more with a memory of the memory, as though it were something that he had been told about and had not really experienced himself. Though physically he was not Yilanè, could never be, he nevertheless now thought like one, moved like one, spoke like one. But his body was still Tanu and in his dreams he moved among his own people. These dreams were disturbing, even frightening, and he was glad that he remembered very little of them when he awoke. He tried to remember more of the Tanu words but could not, while even the words he had spoken aloud slipped from his mind as he recovered.
Other than the perpetual silent presence of Inlènu* he was left completely alone. Akotolp was his only visitor and he wondered at this.
“Are they all still away from the city, all of those who are killing the ustuzou?” he asked her one day.
“No. They have been back twenty of days at least.”
“But no one passes outside, not even the fargi, no one comes in other than you.”
“Of course not.” Akotolp settled back solidly on her tail, her four thumbs laced together and resting comfortably on the thick roll of fat on her midriff. “You know little about the Yilanè, just about this much, the space between my thumbs.” She pinched them together tightly. “You live in our midst yet know nothing.”
“I am nothing, I know nothing. You know everything. Enlightenment would be pleasure.”
Kerrick meant what he said, it was not mere politeness. He lived in a jungle of mysteries, a maze of unanswered questions. Most of his life had been lived here in this city of secrets. There were assumptions and knowledge of Yilanè life that everyone seemed to know — yet no one would talk about. If flattery and fawning could get answers from this fat creature, he would contort himself into every position of obeisance.
“Yilanè do not grow ill. Disease strikes down only the lower animals, like you. I can assume that there were once diseases that affected us. They have long since been eliminated, like the fever that killed some of the first Yilanè to come here. Infections may follow traumatic wounding; they are quickly conquered. So your illness baffles the stupid fargi, they cannot understand it or accept it — so they ignore it — and you. However, such is my skill at working with all forms of life that I am immune to such stupidities.”
She expressed great satisfaction with herself and Kerrick hurried to agree in great detail. “There is nothing unknown to your Highest,” he added. “Could this stupid one presume upon your intelligence to ask a question?”
Akotolp signaled bored permission.
“Is there not disease among the males? I was told in the hanalè that many of them die on the beaches.”
“Males are stupid and make too much stupid talk. It is forbidden for Yilanè to discuss these things.”
Akotolp looked at Kerrick with one quizzical eye, while rolling the other at the same time towards Inlènu*’s stolid back, while she made up her mind.
“But I can see no harm in telling you. You are not Yilanè — and you are male — so you will be told. I will speak of it simply, because only one of my great knowledge can really understand it. I am going to describe to you the intimate and complicated details of the process of reproduction. Firstly, you must realize your inferiority. All of the warm-fleshed male creatures, including yourself, evacuate sperm — and that is your total involvement in the birth process. This is not true of our superior species. During intercourse the fertilized egg is deposited within the masculine pouch. This act triggers a metabolic change in the male. The creature grows torpid, expends little energy, and grows fat. The eggs hatch, the young nurse in the protected pouch and grow strong, emerging only when they are mature enough to survive in the sea. A beautiful process that frees the superior females for more important duties.”
Akotolp smacked her lips hungrily, reached out, and seized up Kerrick’s unfinished gourd of liquid meat and drained it in a single swallow. “ Superior in every way.” She belched with pleasure. “Once the young have entered the sea the male role in reproduction is finished. Very much the same, it might be said, as that of an insect called the mantis where the female eats the male while they are copulating. Reversing the male metabolic change is not efficient. Approximately half of them die in the process. While this is presumably uncomfortable for the male it has no effect at all on the survival of the species. You have no idea of what I am talking about, do you? I can tell that by the bestial emptiness of your eyes.”