Whatever
it is, thought Rikard, it better be
damned good.
At this
time of day, the Emer freeway northbound saw
little traffic, which was fortunate in the
sweltering heat without air conditioning.
Longing for the coast where it was at least
ten degrees cooler, Rikard drove past wide,
green stretches of strawberry and cabbage
fields worked by Akkian migrants before
farmland gave way to industries and finally
the suburbs.
Rikard
consulted the hastily scribbled note on the
front seat beside his map, turned off the
freeway and made it into the precinct parking
lot before his station wagon started to
overheat.
Cool
air welcomed him into the building. Giving
his name to the female officer at the
counter, he took a seat on a wooden bench
next to a stack of pamphlets. He picked one
up, thumbing through information on drug
prevention without paying much attention.
Five minutes passed before he heard a man
call his name from behind the counter.
A
sunburned, heavyset man in plain clothes
pumped his hand. “I’m Detective
Barand, we spoke on the phone,” he said
in a voice that came from deep in his chest.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice.
Come on inside.”
Rikard
followed him into a cramped office. Barand
shut the door and pushed aside the files
littering the desk. “Would you like
something to drink?”
“Anything,
as long as it’s cold,” answered
Rikard.
What he
got was a tepid lime soda. Popping the top,
he sipped at the beverage while the detective
sat down and began to speak.
“I
saw your program on television.” Barand
shifted in his chair, clearing his throat.
“Actually, my wife was watching
it.”
It took
Rikard a moment to recall which program that
was. “Oh, yes, the segment on Mysteries
of Archaeology. What about it?”
Barand
coughed and shifted again. Either the man had
a massive hemorrhoid or this was a
conversation he absolutely did not want to
have. “For the record, I’m not a
believer in psychics or experimental science
or anything like that,” he said quickly,
“but I happened to remember the program.
You were talking about an ancient genetic
mutation that occurred only in certain
males.”
Why the
police would be interested in anything having
to do with a pagan water cult Rikard had no
idea. “It’s just a theory at this
point.”
“Theory
or not, I’ve got somebody here you might
want to look at,” said Barand. “I
realize it’s a stretch, but nobody seems
to know what’s going on with this
kid.”
Rikard
nearly gagged on his soda. “Come
again?”
“His
name is Valen Artesso. Eighteen years old,
senior at the local high school. Two days ago
he came in under the influence, been sick and
incoherent ever since,” said Barand.
“He attracted some unusual attention
while intoxicated. The general opinion is
that he’s been hanging out with the punk
crowd, bleaching his hair and using
pheromones, but his parents insist he
isn’t into drugs.”
It took
all Rikard’s effort not to roll his eyes
and lose his temper. “You asked me here
to look at some junkie?”
At
least Barand was decent enough to be
apologetic. “I know how this looks, Dr.
Rikard. Believe me, I’d like nothing
better than to write this off as drunk and
disorderly and close the file, but the
kid’s toxicology screens came back
negative for any substance. He’s got no
criminal record. He’s clean. Feverish
and vomiting, but he’s clean.”
I
can’t believe I just drove four hours in
the heat for this shit. “It could
just be a case of the flu,” said Rikard.
Barand
nodded. “Yeah, it could be, but
there’s something going on with this kid
that doesn’t seem normal.”
“Then
call the authorities and have them look at
him. If this is some new strain or an
outbreak of the Bhellin bird flu I’m not
equipped to diagnose it,” argued Rikard.
“My specialty is cultural
anthropology.”
“Your
mutation theory—”
“Is
just that: a theory.” Rikard set the
soda can on the desk before him.
“Detective, you didn’t watch the
whole program, did you? If you did then
you’d know that this mutation we’ve
been talking about is an idea we’ve been
tossing around in academic circles for a
decade, but the problem is we can’t
prove it. In the era we’re talking about
people buried their dead at sea, which leaves
us without the genetic samples we need.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t think
I can help you.”
* * *
“What
the fuck do you want?”
Barand
pulled a wooden chair from the corner of the
cell and offered it to Rikard.
“You’re in luck, Doctor: he’s
being a bit less of an asshole today.
How’re you doing, Val?”
The
young man huddled on the cot was slightly
built with short, spiked hair. He looked
positively green, his face slicked with
perspiration. Rikard hoped whatever he had
was not contagious. “Fuck you. I feel
like shit and I want to go home. I know my
rights: I didn’t do anything and you
can’t keep me here.”
“Yeah,
doing nothing is why half that nightclub
tried to gang rape you.”
Val
flashed him the middle finger before glancing
over at Rikard. “Who’s the old
fart?”
“This
is Dr. Iain Rikard from Bakelian University
in Sirilon,” answered Barand. “He
came to have a look at you and ask a few
questions, so try to be polite.”
Sallow
florescent light made it difficult to tell
what color Val’s hair truly was, and as
Rikard knew from his own students young
people experimented with dyes all the time;
last autumn his own daughter had come home
with purple hair. It might be white, or
merely a very light shade of blond.
“Detective, would you leave us for a few
minutes?”
On his
way out, Barand wagged a warning finger at
Val. “Be nice to the doctor.”
Once
they were alone, Rikard sat down in the
chair. “Tell me, is that your normal
hair color?”
“What
the fuck do you care?” snapped Val.
“Are
you always this nice to visiting
professors?”
“I
thought the cop said you were a doctor.”
“I
have a Ph.D in Cultural Anthropology,”
answered Rikard. “My specialty is
ancient belief systems.”
Val
coughed into his fist. “What the hell
does that have to do with me?”
Rikard
leaned forward. “First of all, young
man, enough with the profanity. I realize
you’re sick and frustrated at being in
here, but I just drove four hours in hundred
degree heat to see you. Try to be
polite.”
“Yeah,
whatever you say, old man,” mumbled Val.
“Ask away.”
“And
second of all, my name is Iain, not ‘old
man.’ Now is that your normal hair
color? I’m not here to judge you; you
could have green hair for all I care. I just
want to know if it’s your natural
color.”
Val
stared at him with glassy eyes. “No,
it’s not fucking normal. I woke
up a few days ago and it was like this. My
friends probably did this shit to me while I
was passed out. They probably pumped me full
of crap, too. I feel awful.”
Reminding
him about the profanity would do no good.
“The detective told me you tested
negative for drugs,” said Rikard.
“Okay, now what did he mean before about
this incident in the nightclub?”
“Oh,
that shit? I don’t know. When this
happened—” Val tugged at his
sweat-mussed hair “—everybody
started looking at me funny, like it was all
some big joke. I was cool with it until they
started groping me. They probably slipped me
some PH, though it didn’t feel like
it.”
As his
own teenagers and students constantly
reminded him, Rikard did not understand the
younger generation. “Some what?”
“You
know, pheromones? When you want to get laid
you take a hit of the stuff and you
don’t have to worry about getting them
interested or in the mood,” explained
Val. “Don’t you old people ever do
anything like that?”
Rikard
suddenly became aware of his proximity to the
young man, who was not at all unattractive. Sweet
Josue, stop that! he thought. How
many pheromones did they give him if he can
cause a reaction like this two days later?
Unless it was something other than drugs.
“No, I’m afraid we academic types
are very boring,” he replied.
* * *
Tests
were needed which the university was not
likely to fund based on nothing more than gee,
this kid is really unusual and I’d like
to know why. “I don’t know
what to tell you right now,” he told
Barand. “You understand that I’ll
have to run this by my colleagues at
Bakelian.”
“Yeah,
sure,” said Barand, “but let me ask
you this: when you were in there did you
sense a vibe from him?”
“He
said something about a drug called PH.”
The
detective nodded. “I can see where
you’re going with this; I thought so,
too, at first. But PH is a sex-exclusive
drug; you can’t take a hit and have both
sexes attracted to you at the same time, and
that’s what’s happening with this
kid. We had to isolate him because the male
inmates in the regular lockup—even the
straight ones—were starting to look at
him, and now it’s the female officers. I
think you get the picture. Any dose he took
should have worn off by now.”
Rikard
glanced at the clock over the file cabinet.
Four o’clock. After leaving here, he
would get something to eat, call his wife and
find a motel for the night. “What are
you going to do with him?”
“We
can’t keep him past seventy-two hours
without arresting him, and he’s not
guilty of anything except public
intoxication,” said Barand. “His
parents have agreed to put him in a
residential facility to get him cleaned up
and away from the kids he’s been hanging
out with.”
For his
trouble, Barand insisted on buying him dinner
at the local coffee shop, where many off-duty
police officers went to eat.
If
Val’s condition was not drug-related,
then this was very interesting indeed, even
if Rikard did not quite yet know how he was
going to explain it to his colleagues.
At this
point, he realized, it might be a better idea
not to say anything at all.
* * *
Late
summer and ocean breezes brought cooler
temperatures to Sirilon, but a month after
his visit to Emer Rikard was no closer to
solving his dilemma. Word came from Barand
that Valen Artesso still showed PH symptoms
despite a clean toxicology screen. “No
dose lasts this long,” said the
detective, “and he’s not showing
anymore signs of withdrawal. He’s
perfectly healthy, though I can’t say
the same for the people around him.”
Rikard,
pen and paper in hand, hastily scribbled down
the information. “Yeah, go ahead. How is
he affecting them?”
“The
residential home is about to kick him out.
Now he hasn’t done anything wrong per
se. Just his mere presence is enough to upset
the staff and inmates,” explained
Barand. “This morning the woman who runs
the facility called me up to say a
Down’s Syndrome kid down the hall tried
to seduce him.”
A
reaction that dramatic begged investigation.
“I’ll see what I can do, but
I’m not making any promises.”
There
was no time to write and apply for a grant,
even if Rikard knew how to word it. Val was
eighteen, his parents did not know how to
cope with the change and chances were strong
that if the facility evicted him he would
disappear into the ranks of Emer’s
homeless. Rikard toyed with several options,
including putting the young man up in his own
home, before approaching the head of the
department.
Even
with the situation presented as an appealing
research opportunity, Shanson’s main
concerns were money and respectability.
“Your genetic mutation theory is
borderline crackpot science, you realize
that? Proper academia doesn’t cater to
the lowest denominator, and that’s
exactly what you’re proposing.”
“I’ve
seen this young man,” said Rikard,
“and there’s something very unusual
about him. All I’m asking is a permit to
bring him here for observation. The
Psychology Department has a vacant sleep
research lab where we can isolate him. As for
my theory, nobody’s suggesting
announcing to the world that this kid is
living proof that the Talili cult had a
genetic basis.”
“So
what do we tell Psychology, or any other
department whose help you might need to
conduct this research?” asked Shanson.
Apparently he still had not forgiven Rikard
for the Mysteries of Archaeology
segment, claiming it misrepresented the
university. Bakelian is a respectable
institution, Iain, and here you’re
bringing us down to the level of those
crackpots who claim the Juvan colossi were
built by space aliens.
“Do
you remember the genetic mapping project we
did on diverse island populations?”
Shanson
pulled at his beard; it was not a good sign.
“Those samples were collected in the
field. You’re proposing a living subject
in a laboratory whose presence we’re
going to have to explain.”
Rikard
sighed. “It’s your call, Efan, but
let me remind you that you wanted to see some
solid evidence for the genetic mutation
theory. Here we have a chance at proving
it’s legitimate, or refuting it
altogether.”
“I
don’t care for the subject,” said
Shanson. “A teenager with a troubled
history—”
“From
what we know of the original talevé,
they were also teenagers at the time of their
mutation.”
“Provided
it was a mutation and not simply an
elaborate metaphor for a religious rite
dedicating them to the goddess,” Shanson
quickly pointed out. “Your proposed
subject is an unruly kid with a history of
drug use. Suppose this anomaly turns out to
be just another strain of pheromone?”
“The
Emer police have already ruled that out. Of
course,” Rikard quickly added, “we
can do our own toxicology screen and if the
results are positive for PH we can send the
kid back.”
“This
is not a suitable topic for anthropological
study,” said Shanson.
Rikard
shook his head. “If he’s what I
think he is, he couldn’t be any more
suitable. And if he’s just another
troubled kid experimenting with drugs,
I’m sure some of the other staff will
find him an interesting subject for their
urban anthropology research.”
* * *
“Your
subject has no ABO antigens.” Merissa
moved over so Rikard could view the slide
under the microscope. “He’s
O-positive, but somehow different. I’ve
tried adding type O blood to his sample but
it agglutinates, which it shouldn’t do.
With this blood disorder your subject has,
getting a transfusion would be next to
impossible.”
The
graduate students Rikard recruited for the
project were amiable and asked few questions,
assuming Val had a rare but non-contagious
defect.
On the
trip down from Emer, Rikard had rehearsed the
scenario with Val. He would live in the
observation room used for sleep research and
other psychological experiments and receive a
battery of non-invasive tests to determine
what was wrong with him. “It’s
really quite comfortable,” said Rikard,
“and you can have music, movies, video
games and even order pizza if you like. The
only two things you can’t do are go out
or have Internet access.”
Val
anxiously chewed his fingernail. The changes
in him were subtle, but he still exuded
pheromones that Rikard found difficult to
resist. Remember, you’re married and
heterosexual. Fortunately the graduate
students would be wearing masks and gloves
for the testing; they might not even notice
the anomaly.
“How
long do I have to stay like this?” he
asked.
“Hopefully
not long,” answered Rikard.
For the
first week Val cooperated and even seemed to
enjoy the attention and new setting, but
after that he became restless. “I can
only play so many video games,” he
complained, “and I’ve got no
friends to crash with. I want to know
what’s going on with me.”
Val
knew only a little more than the graduate
students evaluating him, and the pieces he
had amounted to nothing. Sooner or later,
Rikard knew, he would have to be told.
“Something very strange was going on
with you in Emer. It’s still going on,
and we need to know what it is.”
“It’s
like cancer, isn’t it?”
“It’s
not cancer,” said Rikard. “You said
you were feeling better.”
Val
nodded. “Yeah, the withdrawal stopped,
but now there are other things. I used to
shave in the mornings, you know. Now I
don’t have any more hair except
what’s on my head; even my dick is
hairless. Don’t you lose your hair when
you have cancer?”
Rikard
chuckled at him while pushing the inevitable
phallic image from his mind. “Only when
you’ve had chemotherapy,” he said.
“We’re investigating your hair loss
and everything else, trust me.”
“But
I can’t go out. People with cancer have
to stay inside, like in a bubble, don’t
they?”
Had Val
not been in such earnest, his worrying might
have been humorous. Rikard did everything he
could to reassure him. “Isolation is
standard practice for any test subject. We
need to monitor everything you do or ingest,
and letting you go out would mean we
can’t observe you. It’s not cancer,
that much I can tell you.”
“So
how long do I have to stay here?”
“Until
all the tests are back, maybe three or four
months.” Knowing the lab, however,
Rikard suspected it would take closer to
seven to get the DNA from Val’s cheek
swab processed.
Again
Val nodded, clearly disappointed by the
answer. “You think I could I get a
tattoo?”
“A
what?”
Val
rolled his eyes. “A tattoo. You know, an
ink drawing on—”
“Yes,
I have two teenagers myself; I know what a
tattoo is,” said Rikard. Just like his
daughter, asking for anything and everything
she knew he would not let her have. “Why
would you want one?”
A shrug
was not the most promising answer. “I
don’t know,” replied Val.
“I’d like to get a hrill
on my back. They’re so cool.”
Sharks,
even dolphins, Rikard could see. He could
even understand Val’s interest in the
ocean; on the drive up to Bakelian, Val had
hung out the window to look at the bay and
catch the salt breeze on his face. Once he
expressed a desire to go surfing, even though
Sirilon’s waters did not produce
suitable waves.
“Now
why would you want a tattoo of a hrill?
It seems an odd choice.”
Val
rolled his eyes. Like you know cool.
“I dream about them sometimes,” he
said. “Did you know they’re smarter
than dolphins?”
Rikard
wondered if one of the graduate students or
night interns had been talking to Val when he
had given strict orders that only he converse
with the subject. “Why don’t you
dream about something else, like girls?”
Val
snorted. “Didn’t you know, old man?
I don’t like girls. Guys are where
it’s at.” His face brightened and
he grinned. “Say, you don’t think I
could get some dick in here, do you?”
Through
his sudden embarrassment Rikard registered
Val’s request as an interesting
development, confirming something he had
suspected from the beginning. “Uh, I
don’t think so,” he stammered.
* * *
“All
right,” said Shanson, thumbing through
the file, “so we know he’s not a
drug user. However, your DNA results
won’t be back for some time. Your
conclusions are premature.”
Rikard
did not expect his support, even when
confronted with mounting evidence. “You
can see the physical anomalies we’ve
already documented. He’s also openly
homosexual. The texts we have—”
“The
correlation could well be nothing more than a
coincidence.”
Shanson
was not going to give him an inch; that much
was clear. “If such a thing could happen
in ancient times, why not now?”
“You
are assuming it happened,” said Shanson.
“So far, you have no evidence to
convince me that was so.”
* * *
“Would
you like to go out?” asked Rikard.
Val
pulled off his headphones and turned down the
music. “Are you asking me out on a
date?” he asked, half-bemused. “I
thought you were married, old man.”
As
always, Val was toying with him on the
subject of sex. Rikard froze him with a stern
look, cleared his throat and explained,
“Would you like to leave this room and
take a trip around the city? There are two
places I think you might like to see.”
“Are
they gay bars?”
“No,
and you’re not old enough to drink
anyway. Get your shoes on, and you might want
to take a jacket. It’s cool
outside.”
Clearly
Val expected a trip to the local mall, arcade
or beach. Instead, Rikard drove him across
the bay up to an imposing domed building,
pulled into the parking lot and instructed
him to get out. “We’re here.”
“You’re
taking me to a church?” blurted Val.
“I’m not into that whole
religious—”
“We’re
not here to pray, Val. This is the Cathedral
of Sonti Alysse, the oldest in Sirilon,”
said Rikard. “Lock your side and follow
me. I’ll explain along the way.”
Both a
church and tourist attraction, the cathedral
attracted plenty of visitors. Rikard led Val
past a tour group gawking at the elaborate
carvings of saints flanking the archway and
into the dim interior. “The cathedral is
about sixteen hundred years old,” he
said quietly, “but the foundations are
much, much older than that. In pagan times
there was a temple here called the House of
the Water.”
Val
craned his neck to look up at the vaulted
ceiling and its depictions of Creation.
“I’m not much of a museum
person,” he replied. “I mean, the
paintings are cool and all that, but
I—”
Rikard
took him by the arm and gently steered him
toward the right, where an archway led off
the nave. “What I’m going to show
you will interest you.
“About
two hundred years ago, people became
interested in antiquities and the science of
archaeology was born. It took a while, only
in the last twenty years or so, but Church
fathers eventually began acknowledging
Shivar’s pagan past.”
As they
walked, Rikard glanced over to see if he had
Val’s attention; the young man looked
around in apparent interest, but Rikard
immediately recognized the glazed eyes he saw
in some of his students. “When the
cathedral was built, the old pagan temple was
incorporated into the structure and its
artwork was either destroyed or
whitewashed.”
They
entered a hall floored with marble and
decorated with scenes from the life of Saint
Alysse. A docent leading a small tourist
group stood at the end of the hall to point
out and explain the paintings. Rikard walked
past them to an obscure corner cordoned by
velvet rope; the area was mercifully clear of
sightseers.
“This
wall was whitewashed,” he told Val,
“but the plaster just preserved the
painting underneath. Take a look at the
figures.”
Although
faded, the mural was nearly complete, missing
only pieces of the decorative border on its
top and bottom portions. Spanning twenty
feet, it depicted a procession of young men
in archaic jeweled robes bearing offerings.
Val did his best to be polite and examined
it, but he was clearly bored by the
excursion.
“Look
how they all have white hair,” whispered
Rikard, “like yours. This temple was
dedicated to Talili, Lady of the Waters. She
was the patron goddess of Sirilon, and these
young men were her servants.”
“Uh-huh,”
mumbled Val. Perhaps if the figures had been
sporting punk haircuts and ripped jeans,
Rikard reflected, the young man’s
reaction might have been different.
Afterward,
they stopped for lunch in a little restaurant
on the cathedral grounds. “The young men
you saw back there were called talevé.”
Val
picked at his fries. “Yeah, it’s
all very interesting.”
“You
don’t hide your boredom very well,”
said Rikard. “The word means
‘Water-lover’ in Old High
Shivarian. In ancient times people believed
those young men were the specially chosen
lovers of the sea goddess. They were priests
and even worshipped in their own right.”
Either
Val was not interested or bright enough to
make the correlation; Rikard guessed the
former. I really need to stop acting like
everyone enjoys this dry old scholarship as
much as I do, he thought. “I’m
not telling you this to bore you. Some of the
pagan priests managed to save their holy
texts, and we know several things about the talevé.
We know they were fascinated with sea
creatures like the hrill, and many
of them were homosexual.”
That
got the young man’s attention. “No
kidding?” His reaction seemed genuine.
“But why are you telling me all of this?
I mean, that was thousands of years ago. It
doesn’t have anything to do with me
now.”
“I
don’t know where you fit into all of
this,” admitted Rikard, “at least
not yet.”
“I’m
not one of those tal—”
“It’s
pronounced tah-leh-vay.”
“Yeah,
whatever. I’m not one of them.” Val
stirred his milkshake with the straw before
sipping at it. “When can I go
home?”
“You’ll
stay here for the winter and then around
March or—”
“Did
my parents say it was okay? They can’t
do that.”
Rikard
cleared his throat. “I’m well aware
of your rights and how you feel about the
situation, but we can’t just let you go
home without knowing what’s going on. In
the meantime, how would you like to earn your
high school diploma and maybe work for the
university?”
“You’re
shitting me, right?”
“No,”
said Rikard. “The university sponsors
work-study programs, and there’s an
adult school on the campus.”
Val
shrugged. “I don’t know. The way
people look at me when I go out—”
With his eyes he indicated a server who kept
sending him furtive come-hither glances from
the counter; Rikard had not failed to notice
how the young man cooed over Val.
“There’s nothing I can do about
it.”
“The
incident at the night club—”
“Let’s
not talk about that, man,” Val said
quickly. “I don’t want to be like
this, okay?”
As he
nodded, Rikard glared at the male server,
warning him off. “I understand.”
“No,
you don’t. It’s like I put a spell
on people. You don’t know what it’s
like living in a home and having some mental
retard banging on your door and feeling you
up all the time, and you didn’t do
anything to him.” Val lifted the
milkshake to his lips but did not drink.
“I just want to be normal again, you
know.”
* * *
“What
I’m saying is you’ve either got a
contaminated sample or something none of us
has ever seen before,” said the
technician.
Rikard
stared at the results. Genetics not being his
field, he could not interpret the readout on
his own. A call to the lab, however, yielded
more questions than they answered.
“Contaminated with what?”
“I
don’t know how you managed to cross your
human sample with hrill DNA, but
sure enough it got in there. If you want us
to run the sequence again you’re going
to have to get us a clean swab.”
I
thought it was clean, Rikard
started to say, but then with a chill he
realized there was no mistake. It’s
no wonder he’s so fascinated with them.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I’ll look into that.”
Shanson
was irritated by the apparent waste of money,
and Rikard had no eloquent way of
articulating a theory that was crackpot at
best. So he said nothing, took the blame for
botching the sample and offered to end the
experiment. “We’ve collected some
interesting data, so it isn’t a complete
loss.”
That
evening, Rikard sent the night intern on a
break and went into the lab to talk to Val
alone. Everything came out: the blood type
anomalies, the hybrid DNA and the early
suspicions about the pheromones. “The talevé
were sequestered from the rest of the
population. We always thought it was because
of their elevated status, but now I see there
was a biological component to it; the
mutation raised their pheromone levels to
where they had to be isolated for their own
safety. Your results also explain something
about the animal mysticism aspect of the
cult; it might also have been
biological.”
“And
what does that mean for me?”
Bursting up from his chair, Val began to pace
his room. “Are you telling me I’m
not fucking human anymore?”
“Lower
your voice, Val. I know you’re upset,
but the entire building doesn’t need to
hear you.”
Val
curled back his lip. Violence shone in his
eyes, yet when he spoke again his voice was
lower. “Upset doesn’t even begin
to describe it. You’re telling me that
I’m one of these tal—however
the fuck you pronounce it—and that
I’ve got hrill DNA in me?”
His voice was close to breaking, and Rikard
could not blame him.
“I’m
ninety-nine percent certain,” replied
Rikard. “Of course, I don’t have a
sample of original talevé DNA to
compare you with.”
“So
what are you going to do with me, old man?
Are you going to put me on TV for everybody
to stare at like I’m some kind of
freak?”
“No,
Val,” Rikard said quietly.
“I’m going to let you go.”
Although
his face remained red and his fists stayed
balled at his sides, Val’s anger turned
to surprise. “What?”
“You
don’t really think I would do that to
you, do you? You’re an adult and here on
a voluntary basis; you can sign yourself out
anytime you want.” Rikard reached into
his briefcase for the manila folder he had
put together before visiting the lab. “I
brought the release forms with me. I also
brought you some extra clothes and a little
money.”
Val
gave the paper sack of clothes and the bills
a blank stare. “Where should I go?”
“You
could go back to your family in Emer if you
wanted.”
“Screw
my family,” muttered Val. “They
can’t even handle my being queer.
They’ll have a fucking conniption about
this.”
“I
wouldn’t tell anyone if I were
you,” said Rikard. “It might be
easier if you stayed in Sirilon or went to
the Seaward Islands; the island people still
cling to many old traditions.”
Two
days passed before Val left. Not knowing
where to go or what to do made departure
difficult. He signed himself out of the
laboratory, took up residence in a vacant
dorm and spent his time searching the papers
and Internet for work.
Still
being twenty credits short of his diploma
proved an asset, as Rikard was able to get
him into a work-study program in the city.
Val
took the bus downtown rather than accept a
ride. He got on two blocks from the
university, holding only the sack with his
extra clothes and toiletries.
He
promised to keep in touch. Rikard doubted he
would remember.
* * *
Three
years passed before Rikard saw Val again.
In
order to placate Shanson and keep his true
findings secret, Rikard took on teaching
full-time. Occasionally he consulted with
colleagues about recent textual or
archaeological advances, but there was no
more discussion of the genetic mutation
theory. If the talevé were ever
mentioned, it was strictly within the context
of accepted historical or religious pedagogy.
All
very proper, boring and no preparation at all
for the young man who showed up one afternoon
during Rikard’s office hours.
“You
don’t remember me, do you, old
man?” he asked.
Dressed
in a dark T-shirt and jeans, with a silver
stud in one ear, the young man looked like
any other university student except for the
charismatic aura that made Rikard stop and
take a second look at him. Was that spiked
hair bleached, or actually white? “Is
that you, Mr. Artesso?”
“Oh,
it’s all formal now, huh? Do you put all
your students to sleep like that?” Val
closed the door, hopped onto the arm of the
leather couch against the wall and grinned.
“How’ve you been, old man?”
Rikard
removed his reading glasses. “How many
times have I told you not to call me
‘old man’?”
“I
don’t know, but you know I never
listen,” answered Val. “I just came
in from Pelisso and thought I’d say
hi.”
“You’re
living in the Seaward Islands now?”
“Yeah,
I’ve got a bungalow by the beach with
four of my mates.” Grinning, Val burst
out laughing. “There are five of us now,
don’t you know? We hooked up online
through a gay chat room, then when we got
together we all knew. I told them
about the stuff you showed me, the paintings
and writings and all. They want to meet you
and find out more.”
Rikard
drew a sharp breath. “How much have you
told them, Val?”
“Oh,
not the weird stuff like the DNA, although
they know there’s something different
about them. We run a surfing business.
It’s pretty cool.” From his pocket,
Val pulled out a rumpled business card that
read Pelisso Boards and Gear.
“We customize boards and T-shirts if you
ever need anything.”
Taking
the card, Rikard made a mental note to give
it to his son, who enjoyed water skiing and
other sports. “Have you been in any
trouble? You know the kind I mean.”
Val
shrugged. “Sometimes people look at
us,” he replied. “Most people think
we’re just a bunch of bleach-blond
surfer twinks, but I think some of the
islanders know. It’s just like you said:
they have their old ways. Look here.” He
rolled up his T-shirt to expose a triple wave
tattooed on his left bicep. “It’s
the Water rune. People in the Islands wear it
for luck.”
“I
know what it is,” said Rikard.
“I’m the one who showed it to
you.”
“I’ve
got a hrill on my back, too.”
And, as
it turned out, a navel and nipple ring.
Rikard was only surprised that he was not
sporting more piercings or tats. “About
the hrill,” he said. “Have
there been any developments?”
“You
wouldn’t believe the shit that happened
to me,” answered Val, smiling.
“I’ll tell you all about it when
you take me to dinner.”
“When
I take you to dinner?”
“Of
course, old man. You know you’re just dying
to know about my hot, sexy, hybrid life, and
you know you can’t say no to
me.”
Rikard
cleared his throat. Since the beginning he
could not fathom why after so many centuries
and the preeminence of the Church the
servants of an ancient cult would resurface.
All he knew was that if Val’s friends
were anything like Val himself, then he was
going to need patience and a steady supply of
antacids.
