Homegoing

Chapter 18

The countries of Earth, which are now broken up into commonwealths too tiny to be called “countries” anymore, try as much as they can to eliminate governmental power. Especially international power. They know they can’t get along without any at all, though. They do need some sort of network to deal with criminals—thieves, murderers, people who damage the peace and security of others in any way—who are quite capable of flitting from one commonwealth to another. (As everyone is, since there are no such things as “passports” or “visas.”) There aren’t as many criminals as there used to be, even considered as a percentage of the much diminished world population. But they are there, and they need to be dealt with. That’s what InterSec is designed to do. What it is not designed to do is keep track of alien visitors from space . . . but who else is there to do it?

“InterSec’s records are wrong!” Sandy shouted. “That’s impossible.”

Marguery didn’t answer. She looked very tired. She only shook her head.

“But if they’re right—what am I?” he howled.

Marguery took the question at face value and answered it. “You’re a man,” she said positively. “It also happens that you’re a man I like very much—couldn’t you tell that?”

“But—”

“But we don’t know how you got to be a man, exactly,” she agreed. “Right. That doesn’t change anything, does it?” She paused to cough. “I really don’t feel so well,” she said reflectively.

He wasn’t even listening. “I can’t believe what you said about my mother,” he told her somberly.

Marguery shrugged and made an effort to be responsive. “I’m really tired,” she said apologetically. “It’s been a pretty tough few days—spending all your waking hours with you, then as soon as you’re tucked in I have to go for briefing and debriefing. Find out everything else that’s been going on, so I’ll know what to ask you about.” She shook her head, and then added, “Maybe that’s why I’m acting this way. I can’t believe what I’ve been doing. I’m not in the habit of making love with the suspects I’m surveilling.”

“Suspects!”

“Well,” she said reasonably, “people that I’m assigned to keep an eye on. I didn’t mean for the lovemaking part to happen, Sandy. Ham’s going to be really ticked off.”

“That’s none of his business!” Sandy barked.

“Sandy, hon. Everything is InterSec’s business.” She shook her head, looking exhausted and worn.

Sandy’s heart melted. “Oh, Marguery,” he wailed, and reached out blindly toward her. They held each other for a moment, while Sandy shuddered and shook . . . until the tactile quality of the smooth, soft female flesh he was touching began to suggest possibilities to him, and he altered his grip.

Marguery fended him off, smiling wanly. “Not this time, hon. You’re almost too much, you know? You’ve got me sore.”

She released him suddenly to sneeze. “Actually, Sandy,” she said in the tone of someone making a not agreeable discovery, “I don’t feel particularly well for some reason.”

Sandy saw with concern that her lips were swollen. He scowled, perplexed. He had not expected anything like this. He knew that postcoital Hakh’hli were uniformly euphoric. Why weren’t Earth humans? Could they be this different? And if they were so different, if this sort of thing were normal, why in the world did they do it?

She had gotten back into her bathing suit and was wrapping both the damp towels around her, sitting as close to the electric heater as she could. All the same, she was shivering. She tried to smile at Sandy. She said, “It would probably be a good idea for us to get out of here. But this is the only chance we’ve had to talk in private. And there’s more.”

His heart sank. “What more?” he asked. What more could there possibly be?

“Oh, I don’t mean anything else about you, hon,” she said, trying to reassure. “There are some things that the Hakh’hli haven’t told us, and we don’t know what to make of them. The bugs, for instance.”

“I don’t know anything about bugs,” he said positively.

She explained. “The people at the lander have caught three new insects—well, technically they’re not insects, they say. Bugs, anyway. They’re all the same, and the entomologists say they’re not related to any Earthly species at all. And one of them was seen coming out of the lander when one of the Hakh’hli was standing in the doorway.”

“What do they look like?”

She made a restless gesture. “Big as my thumb,” she said. “They fly.”

“Oh,” said Sandy, enlightened and reassured. “I bet I know what they are. They’re just hawkbees. They’re harmless. Except to other bugs, I mean. A few got trapped in the lander with us, but you don’t have to worry about them. There wasn’t any queen with them, and so all we had were sterile males.”

She didn’t answer at first. He looked at her with concern. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were closed. Suddenly, without opening her eyes, she giggled. “Sterile males, hey? Remind you of anything?”

He frowned at her. “What are you talking about?” he demanded harshly. But she wasn’t listening to him. She was talking. At least, it seemed she thought she was talking, because her lips were moving and there were faint sounds. But even with his hearing aid almost touching her mouth Sandy could make out no coherent words.

Sandy knew what the word “delirious” meant. It was what people were in hospital beds, while the policeman was begging them to name their murderer; but he had had no previous experience of it at first hand.

It seemed probable that she should be gotten to medical attention as quickly as possible. But how?

There was no telephone in the room. There was no doorway that opened to the surface. There was no hope that Marguery could lead them back through the underwater passages to safety—even if they still had two air tanks.

Which they didn’t.

When he touched her again, Marguery’s skin was hot, and she was breathing very raggedly. Worse than that, one of her eyes was no longer closed; it was halfway open, but the pupil had rolled up under the lid so that she looked . . . she looked . . . the only word Sandy could find to fit the case was “dead.” And if she hadn’t been breathing so raggedly he might have believed that to be true.

She had to be gotten out of there!

There wasn’t any question about it. What she needed was medical help, and Sandy couldn’t supply it himself.

With only one air tank, what could he do? Not to mention the fact that he couldn’t swim.

It was impossible; but it was also absolutely necessary, and so, grimly, Sandy fitted the mask over the unconscious, groaning woman and clumsily attached the one filled air tank. He closed his eyes, visualizing the path they had traced on entering. Down the spiral staircase. Across the bank floor. Out into the open water, then up to the surface.

It had, he thought, taken no more than five or ten minutes for them to enter in the first place. That was with Marguery in command, and Marguery knew what she was doing; so call it fifteen for him to make it out. Well, then. He could hold his breath for, probably, three minutes—call it two and a half to be safe. That meant he needed to empty his lungs and fill them again half a dozen times.

Was that possible?

The only way to find out was to try. Holding his breath, he slipped his hand under the mask on Marguery’s unconscious face and pulled the mask away. His great hand covered her mouth and nose easily as he exhaled all the air his lungs would surrender. His other hand put the mask over his own face long enough to refill his lungs, and then he replaced the mask.

Then he squatted on his heels in dismay. He was not at all sure that he would be able to keep water from entering Marguery’s lungs, but that wasn’t the worst thing. Still worse was the fact that the process took far too much time. He couldn’t go on breathing only once every two minutes for very long. There was another consideration, too: He didn’t have enough hands to go around. He needed one to keep the water out of Marguery’s nose and mouth, one to hold the mask to his own, and a third one to hold onto whatever rail or article of furniture was mooring them at the moment, and still a fourth hand to hold Marguery.

The whole thing was impossible. It wouldn’t work. They needed two tanks—

Abruptly Sandy roared with surprised satisfaction, making the unconscious woman stir and moan. They had two tanks! The only problem was that one of them was empty.

By the time he had figured out how to bleed some of the contents of the full tank into the other Marguery’s moaning had stopped. She seemed to be asleep. She simply did not rouse from that sleep, even when he shook her.

Sandy hooked her into her gear, slipped his own mask on, and began the long climb down into the water and under it, pulling himself hand over hand along the rail of the spiral staircase, retracing their steps. Finally, once they were down, he could see the glow of sunlight outside.

Three minutes later he was at the surface, bawling frantically for help to the people who were staring at him from a passing work boat.