Not of This World Read online

  That earned him a confused look from the Jeannie. She pointed at him and then Kren. “Risnarish? Risnarish?”

  Nex had come close with a medical analyzer. He was authorized as a crisis medic, having been in the healing arts before switching to law enforcement. Sometimes Kren thought Nex regretted leaving his old vocation. Nex had a scientific bent and enjoyed dabbling in research projects.

  Jeannie noted the olive-and-brown striped officer to her right and pointed to him while giving Kren a questioning look.

  “Risnarish,” he confirmed. Maybe the differing coloration confused her. He motioned to all the men. “Risnarish.”

  Two lines appeared between her brows as the Jeannie drew them together. Then all at once her expression cleared. She laughed a little, her head shaking.

  The sound of her humor was throaty, a wonderful sound. Kren’s mouth dropped open with fresh shock as he exchanged a glance with Arga.

  Nex nearly dropped the fragile tube that was the analyzer. He recovered and choked out, “It laughs. It’s made an expression of Spirit.”

  Bort took a couple of steps back, his wide face comical with almost fear. “Not possible. It can’t have a soul...can it?”

  Another officer named Chal gave him a crooked smile that was half disbelief, half delight. “You heard it, didn’t you?”

  Kren said to Arga, “Monsudan creations do not laugh. This is not one of theirs.”

  Arga gave him a warning shake of the head. “It’s not up to us to decide that.”

  The Jeannie touched Kren’s arm to gain his attention. He looked into her face. “What is it?”

  She pointed to him, to Arga, then Nex. She pointed at every man in the room. “Risnarish.” She pointed to herself. “Human. Human.” Again she pointed to him. “Risnarish.” Herself. “Human. Human.” She stared at him, as if willing him to read her mind.

  Kren thought hard. First she had called herself a Jeannie. Now there was this new word, Hyoo-man. She had said it as if correlating it to Risnarish.

  Arga rubbed the back of his neck. “This is getting us nowhere fast. We need to call the Elders Council.”

  “Arga—” Kren started.

  “You know we have no choice.”

  He gritted his teeth. “Arga—”

  “Arga?” The Jeannie gazed at Kren’s partner. “Arga? Risnarish.” She pointed to herself. “Jeannie. Human.”

  Nex quivered with excitement. “Wait! Could she be saying she has an actual name?”

  Pon looked affronted. “That’s something only sentient beings claim.”

  “Why couldn’t she be sentient? Maybe her species is Hoomin like ours is Risnarish.” Nex stepped closer and jabbed his chest with a finger as she had done. “Nex. Nex.”

  The Jeannie nodded her head, as excited as him. “Jeannie.” She pointed to him. “Nex.” The finger indicated Arga. “Arga.” Then she said something else that ended with “Jeannie.”

  Kren’s partner’s jaw dropped. “She is named. It really could be.”

  Bort shook his head, holding it between his hands as if to keep it from exploding. “Attaching a name to oneself can be another expression of Spirit. This is not possible.”

  Over the excited chatter of the other officers, Nex grinned at him. “She laughed, though. She shows intelligence. I think we’re looking at a new form of sentience.”

  Kren focused on the strange but lovely face in front of him. The implications of her existence were huge, certainly too much for him to grasp at the moment. More for his own clarity than anything else, he pointed to himself. “Kren. My name is Kren. I am Risnarish. Your name is Jeannie. You are Hyoo-man.”

  Her smile was bright, full of those flat, inoffensive teeth. It enhanced her alien beauty, making his hearts beat faster.

  She clapped her hands and nodded her head. A garbled string of sounds came from her mouth, but his name rang clear in the midst of the incomprehensible noises. Hearing her say “Kren” made his belly tighten. It sounded like music from her smiling lips.

  Nex was excited. He threw out theories as fast as his brain came up with options. “Maybe she’s from an alien race that has found its way to our system. Or the Tysu has been here all along, hidden as all the legends claim. Or someone from another dimension! You know, I bred with a woman who works in physics. You should hear the theories of alternate universes she talks about.”

  Kren had sudden inspiration of his own. “I have an idea how we might find out a few answers. Writing screen, enable.”

  A holographic screen swam into being before him. It floated in midair between him and Jeannie, startling the Hyoo-man. He grinned through the bluish square at her and made a comforting noise. He walked around to stand on the same side she faced.

  As she watched with interest, he pointed a finger and narrowed the end to a small point. He used that finger to draw a quick sketch of her riding in a dartwing. The white-lined image was only a bare representation, but Kren had a talent for art.

  Jeannie gave him a look that said he’d impressed her. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned self-consciously before waving his hand over the drawing to wipe it away.

  She said something in her indecipherable language, then raised her hand hesitantly and jabbed a blunt-ended finger at the screen. A white blob appeared. She muttered, her tone apologetic.

  Arga snorted. “You’ve intimidated her. She feels badly that she can’t draw as well as you.”

  “It’s all right,” Kren reassured her, wiping his hand over the blot to give her a clean screen again. “I had a marvelous teacher.”

  Jeannie smiled and started again. Her movements were unsure, the lines wavering. The image she drew was crude. But not bad. She seemed to be hampered more by the blunt end of her inflexible fingers than the ability to draw.

  Kren watched her face as she worked. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, concentrating on the image she created. Her brow crinkled again, her face grim with purpose. She scowled at the way her drawing was turning out, waving her hand over it a couple of times to erase her first attempts.

  She was definitely intelligent, Kren decided. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover she possessed a soul, sentient and animated by the All-Spirit.

  Nex’s upset voice broke into his happy contemplation. “Oh no. Is that what I think it is?”

  Kren looked at the drawing Jeannie was putting the finishing touches on. It was crude, the lines thick. Childish almost, especially compared to Kren’s earlier sketch. But he could identify the figures.

  She’d drawn a round-headed stick figure with wavy lines that Kren supposed represented Jeannie’s head full of hair. The eyes were tiny dots, the mouth a down-turned curve that expressed sadness despite its unsophisticated rendering. It was on a horizontal plane, lying on a rectangle. Jeannie pointed to it and confirmed Kren’s supposition: “Jeannie.”

  Other figures stood vertical around the rectangle. They were rendered equally as crude, with larger heads, big holes for eyes, and drawn shorter than the stick-Jeannie. Kren’s hearts sank as his fellow officers began to mutter to one another.

  Jeannie’s drawing was rudimentary, but the small-bodied, big-headed creatures were immediately identifiable all the same. Kren looked at drones, creations of the Monsuda.

  It could only mean that Jeannie was also of Monsudan origin, a biological creation of their obscene labs. She would have to be killed.

  Chapter Three

  Kren motioned Arga away while Nex went over Jeannie with his medical analyzer. After seeing the horrifying drawing Jeannie had made, he needed his partner’s clear thinking.

  As soon as they were in semi-privacy, Kren struggled with something to say. All he could manage was to wave his hands a little and rub the mane on top of his head. He felt devastated.

  Arga shook his head, his expression reflecting Kren’s helplessness.
“That fixes it, then. She’s a product of the Monsudan labs. Damn it.”

  The statement galvanized Kren to pull his head together and search for a solution. “Hold up. Those crawly bastards experiment on existing life forms. They’ve abducted Risnarish for centuries for that purpose. Maybe she didn’t originate with them.”

  Arga froze for a moment when Kren mentioned Risnarish abductions, but he recovered quickly. “Then where did she come from? She’s not from Risnar.”

  “How do we know that? How do we know they didn’t take one of us and alter a Risnarish until they came up with her?”

  “The language she speaks, for starters.” Arga sighed at Kren’s exasperated expression. “I guess it’s possible. After all, she shows signs of possessing a soul. That laugh...” For a moment wonder drifted over his face.

  Kren nodded with enthusiasm. “Exactly. The elders will need more evidence of sentience, though. We have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt she has independent will.” He looked at Nex, who was frowning over his analyzer. “I wish we’d kept her existence quiet from the rest. It would be easier if we could keep her hidden until we have proof she’s not of Monsudan origin.”

  Arga’s eyes widened. “You would do that? Keep her hidden from the elders?”

  Kren’s stomachs knotted. He’d said too much. It was downright treasonous to speak of hiding something from the Elders Council of Hahz, the local representatives of Risnar’s ruling Assembly. Yet he wanted Jeannie to be all right. She was too sweet, too smart, too alive to be sentenced to death.

  Before he could justify his words, Nex signaled to them to come over. The pair rejoined the men still crowded around Jeannie. She smiled at Kren as he approached, and his hearts softened. No, he could not bear to see her exterminated. She looked too harmless.

  Nex started his report. “No venom pits at the roots of her teeth. She isn’t poisonous. Her teeth are all blunt. She could do damage with them, but not if we armor skin.”

  Arga pursed his lips. “What defenses does she have?”

  “Physically? Not much. Not against any of us. But her brain size is on par with ours.”

  Kren said, “So we can assume high intelligence.”

  “She needs it with so few fighting characteristics.” Nex lowered his voice as if the human could understand him. “Get this: she has one heart. One liver. One stomach. A lot of the other stuff is redundant like us, but not those organs.”

  Arga’s startled exclamation rose over the others’. “What? What’s she supposed to do if those are damaged or fail?”

  Nex shrugged. “Die.”

  Bort spoke slowly, his tone incredulous. “There’s no way she was made in a Monsudan lab, Kren. They’d never create such a weak thing. Even the drones have more defenses than her.”

  Kren agreed, but he knew the obstacles facing the female. “Tell that to the elders. They may not allow her to live before we can prove it.”

  The men glanced at each other. Jeannie’s brows had drawn together as they spoke, as if she realized they discussed weighty matters. Was she smart enough to reason? Did she guess her life hung in the balance? Kren hoped not. The last thing he wanted was for her to be more afraid than she already was.

  Nex licked his lips and spoke carefully. “Don’t take this wrong, but—well, maybe you could delay contacting the elders? Not for long, of course,” he rushed to add. “Just enough to find more evidence of what she is. Maybe a day? Two?”

  After Arga’s shocked reaction to Kren’s earlier statement, he had to answer as the head enforcer he was. “You know we’ll face censure for such a willful delay.”

  Pon was young enough to speak more rebelliously than most. “Come on, Kren. Look at her. She’s too cute to euthanize without getting the chance to prove she’s not made by the Monsuda. Delay enough to consult with a scholar who might know what she is.”

  Arga surprised Kren by reversing his earlier stance. “What about your guardian? Mekay? He knows arcane stuff better than anyone. With him being a ranking elder, we might not get burned for not alerting the entire council immediately.”

  Kren had never been more grateful to his friend than that moment. “Mekay would be perfect. If we go to him, it’s not as if we would be concealing her after all.”

  The entire group showed relief at the compromise. Nex grinned and patted Jeannie on the head. “I think we’ve bought you another day, Jeannie the Hoomin.”

  She gave him a pained smile, as if to respond to his friendliness while showing dislike for the patronizing head-pat gesture.

  With the whole group in agreement, Kren decided to move quickly on the decision. “We should get her out of here before the night shift shows up. The fewer who know about her, the better. If we can keep this discovery quiet for a few hours, our chances of preventing an outcry against this delay will be better.”

  Arga gave them all his toughest expression, particularly impetuous Pon. “So keep your mouths shut. None of you know anything about this. It will protect you from any trouble as well as her.”

  They all nodded. Arga looked at Kren. “Where are we taking her? Straight to Mekay?”

  Kren considered then shook his head. “It’s late in the day. I need a little more time to study her. That will allow me to gather more information to present to him.”

  “You don’t trust him to not have her destroyed right away?”

  Kren snorted. “Of course I trust him. But the more I observe and can report on, the less he’ll have to. I don’t want him forced to explain himself to Elder Yees or the rest of the council.”

  “I see your point.”

  “I think it would be best if I wait until morning to take Jeannie to Mekay. That means I’ll be coming in late.”

  Bort shrugged. “We’ll hold down the fort. I’ll be in charge.”

  “You wish.” Arga said, “That still doesn’t lock down where she’s spending the night.”

  Kren gazed at Jeannie. She looked concerned, like she knew she was being discussed. At least she had no idea what was being said. He swallowed before he answered, “I guess I’ll take her home. I can’t think of anything else to do with her if we’re to keep her presence a secret.”

  Arga shrugged. “She seems harmless enough, especially with Nex’s report. I hope she won’t make a mess of your dome.”

  “Yeah, I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with her. Maybe I can make a sleep spot for her on the lavatory floor.” Kren hoped she could be trained to use the facility. He didn’t want to have to clean up after her, even as cute as she was. He sighed, wondering what he was letting himself in for. “I can’t see another alternative at the moment.”

  Arga checked the time. “You’d better dart on out of here.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kren held out his hand to his unexpected but not entirely unwelcome houseguest...as long as she was toilet trained. “Jeannie? Come with me?”

  She stared at his outstretched hand. Hesitantly, but with only the faintest tremor, she took it. He helped her down from the computer podium and tugged at her, turning and moving toward the door. She walked beside him, her eyes wide and expression hopeful.

  Kren kept an encouraging smile on his face, fighting to keep the onslaught of worry from clouding his features.

  * * *

  The night had grown colder still. This time flying didn’t strike her as so bad. Maybe she would be okay. The aliens seemed to like her, and despite moments of intense conversation, she detected no hint they wished to harm her. Given their response, things didn’t feel quite so awful.

  She hoped she was right, but she’d remain alert and ready to run if circumstances proved otherwise. She couldn’t let her guard down.

  Kren the Risnarish fiddled with controls on the craft’s dashboard. The trickle of heat from a vent in front of her became a delightful blast, keeping the cold at bay. Jeannie didn’t fin
d the cozily snug cockpit uncomfortable. Kren radiated warmth of his own, a living electric blanket.

  They lifted into the air and flew through the night. It was pitch dark now that the gas giant had set. Stars in patterns made familiar to Jeannie by the last few weeks on the run scattered across the wide black sky.

  The flying machine’s cockpit was a depression in the craft, much like where one would sit in a kayak. The console in front of her had a series of readouts showing different colored bars. As Jeannie looked at it, the bars changed in hue and size. She could detect no particular pattern in their movements.

  Kren wrapped his two-fingered hands around a couple of rods that stuck out from either side of the console. Probably the throttle and the steering mechanism. When he moved the one on the left up and down, the speed of the flyer adjusted. The right rod changed the direction and height the nose of the craft pointed in.

  Jeannie took a breath and tried not to acknowledge how hungry she was. Berries and roots and seed pods from trees had been her mainstay since escaping the underground laboratories of the others. Those sources had been few and far between, leaving her feeling hollow for most of the time. When she’d discovered what appeared to be a village of dome buildings with small cultivated fields, Jeannie had taken to skulking the edge of the woods, hoping to find more food. She’d been warned off by the sight of loping, doglike creatures. Those roamed the open areas, seeming to herd other animals and carrying loads in their wide mouths. Even the gnaw of hunger couldn’t get her to dare sneaking into those fields in search of food. The not-quite-dogs might very well bite.

  At least she was warm at the moment. Kren’s body continued to be pliable, if rather firm. It beat sitting on the hard skin he’d worn before. Jeannie marveled at that amazing adaptation. When she’d hit him, it had been as if she’d pounded on thick steel or concrete. It made her wonder if the Risnarish could fend off knives or even bullets with their armored skin.

  Kren and his fellow aliens amazed her in every way. They grew and subtracted fingers seemingly at will. Despite appearing as if they’d been blended with animals, they showed astounding intelligence. After seeing the flying machines they rode in, along with the inside of the domed building and the various instruments the Risnarish used, Jeannie thought they must be technologically ahead of humans by at least a century.