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19
One night, as Jory walked to his quarters after work, he thought he detected a familiar smell near the elevator shaft in his quiet corridor, but he could not place it. Later that night, as he lay studying astrogation and advanced mathematics, he received a vid from Aptath. He looked agitated. "We've got a situation, Jory. Need you down here right away."
Minutes later, with an escort, and still pulling his jumpsuit shut, Jory strode down the halls in Deck 38, a cargo deck near the ship's bottom. The smell was more noticeable now, and Jory could almost place it as he hurried along plain, utilitarian corridors with black steel floors and ceilings. Every two man-lengths a round biolume in mid-ceiling cast its island of cold light.
Captain Aptath met him at an intersection. He took Jory by the arm and roughly pulled him around a corner. "You are the only person who can possibly know what this means."
Storage unit doors made a line down the corridor. One door had bulged open, and a wheat-colored mass flowed out like dry foam. "Do you know anything about this? Is this some Oban deception?"
"Sir, I don't know what you are talking about."
Aptath grunted and let go. "Forgive me if I'm upset, but we seem to be losing part of our cargo here."
Jory brushed his arm off, and stumbled through the material. Now he recognized it, and he understood why the captain had called him—the smell was of tywix! "Is this a shipment from Oba? from Shur?"
"Damn right it is! Look what's inside."
Jory waded through the tywix foam, knee deep in places. The storage room was about twenty body-lengths to a side and ten lengths tall. Its walls were wood-paneled. This was delicate cargo—containers of fungi, some large, some small. Racks of small urns sat on pallets in a corner. Large aluminum containers were stacked to the ceiling against the back wall. Stacks of smaller containers were piled here and there—enough wealth here for a kingdom, Jory thought.
In the center of the mess stood a man in a biotechnician's white overalls. He was a tall, relatively slender Ruandap with a mussy mane, and he shook his head as he waved an instrument around. "Do you know anything of this?" the biotech asked Jory.
"No. I've never seen the tywix behave this way." Jory slogged toward him, Aptath and one or two security guards trailing. "My God." Shock overwhelmed Jory. He was staring into the face of a baba—or what was left of her. Slowly, he recognized her—Ramy-baba!
Somehow, instead of killing herself, the baba must have bribed cargo carriers to bring her to Kusi-O. But why? She must have killed Ramy to prevent any worse pain coming to her at Dumonhi hands. Then why did she not die with her? With all the clout the babas had, even in shady areas, this one had gotten herself smuggled away from the castle, perhaps among outlaws in the distant interior. But she'd stayed in the aluminum container. Perhaps she'd suffocated. For some reason, the tywix in her container had begun to froth up, as if it were sporing time. It had forced the container to split apart, and the fungus had kept increasing its size over and over until it filled the room and pushed the door out. Then it must have begun to die. By now only a million dry and lifeless tiny husks were left.
At Jory's feet, on the surface of the wheat-colored tywix, was a dark stain like a carelessly tossed blanket—her body. At one end was a smaller stain the size of a smashed melon—Jory recognized the baba's face.
"It is still alive," the biotech said waving his gadget. "But it is near death."
"She is a female," Jory said, "from my birth world. She is the sister of my mistress." He could not believe his great fortune—even to see only the sister- baba of the woman he'd loved. "Ramy-baba," he whispered, afraid to touch her, for fear her desiccated body might fall apart. There was almost nothing left of her—she'd become part of the foam, and as her face slowly vanished, she would cease to be. Why had she done this? "Ramy-baba," he repeated over and over.
Her eye slits trembled. Jory wondered if she could see him at all. Her remaining shreds of skin looked like rotten black-brown fruit atop the foam. Her mouth was a raw gash, part foam, part rotting skin. Her nose was an indistinct feature passing no air. Her last exhalation had left a tiny mound of brown foam by one nostril. Now she breathed only shallow breaths with her mouth. As her inner organs shut down and turned to foam one by one, that too would cease. "Why?" Jory asked. "Why?" He murmured: "Ramy-baba!"
Her mouth struggled to form a word: "Jory" or did she say "Sorry?"
He gave the Shurian sign of forgiveness by touching two fingertips to her cheeks. He felt a little bit of sharp bone under the scrap of skin. "I love you," he told the baba. It was the first time he'd ever said that to a baba.
Her eyes closed briefly in acknowledgment. "Gyen. Thank you."
Then she opened her eyes, and, looking down, guided his gaze. "Take," she croaked. All he could see was one hand, or what was left of it, looking like shreds of a brown glove. She would never lift that hand again. Maybe it wasn't even connected to her anymore. "Your hand?" he asked.
She had no strength left. She closed her eyes in assent.
He poked warily, and the skin that had been her hand fell apart in slimy flakes. He pushed the flakes aside, feeling something hard. Poking some more, he felt a handle. He grasped it and pulled.
"It is dying," the biotech said, looking at his instrument rather than at her.
Jory pulled out a duello knife. So Ramy had committed suicide, and her sister had brought the knife to Jory? Why? It made no sense.
"It is gone," said the biotech. "Wait!"
Jory stared at the knife, blinking back tears. He recognized the Oban calligraphy on its handle. He read the poem:
Two moons embrace above the koh tree.
The celestial dome turns, hiding them behind the tree trunk.
Rabbit-in-the-Grass catches his breath—when will they reappear?
He smiled at the memory. He'd seen those very knives on a shelf in the Great Hall of Ramyon. He remembered what the other sword said:
The celestial dome turns, revealing what hid behind the koh.
Not a single moon in sight, alas.
Rabbit-in-the-Grass sighs and hops away.
The Biotech said: "Wait! Something else is alive under there. Something new that wasn't alive a minute ago."
Jory already half-understood. That spark...it had synapsed, a last gift from one love to another.
Jory carefully used his fingers to probe through the foam until he came to a rubbery surface. He dug the foam away with his hands, and the biotech helped. In places where body parts still hung together, Jory carved them apart.
Together, they exposed a long birth-sac—not the tiny birth-sac of a Shurian infant, but one large enough to hold a fully grown person.
"Easy," the biotech said. "There is a heart beating, but irregularly." He yelled: "Captain! we need to get this individual to the hospital immediately."
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