Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [42]
She executed a Pitarian gesture of understanding. “It is not something we work at. Biology is what it is. It does not play favorites. Believe me, there are aspects to it where your abilities far exceed ours.”
“There are millions of humans who, after seeing you, would disagree. Take yourself, for example. Unlike with most human females, it’s impossible to tell if you’ve had or have not had children.”
The look she turned on him was so sharp and sudden it shocked him. “What makes you ask that?”
He hastened to recover. “Nothing particular. I was just making conversation.” His smile seemed to settle her. “I did not mean to intrude, or to violate any social taboos. Remember, we are still learning about each other.”
“That is true. You should excuse me. I should not have reacted the way that I did.”
But she had, Saluafata reflected, and he could not help wondering why. He proceeded gently. “Then if I’m not probing an area that’s restricted or off-limits, may I ask if you have had children?”
“No, I have not given birth to any offspring.” She smiled as she said it, but to the perceptive Saluafata she still seemed sensitive about the matter.
He was about to investigate further when she suddenly turned to him and once more placed a hand on his arm. The difference was that this time, she did not remove it.
“As long as you have brought forth the subject of mutually investigative biology,” she murmured in a voice that was as unchanged as it was inherently seductive, “you must know that it has been theorized that sexual relations between Pitar and human are regarded as physically possible. All preliminary studies of the relevant architecture would seem to favor it. There can of course be no issue as a consequence of such contact. All that is wanting for confirmed results to be promulgated is a sufficiency of experimental data.”
“I actually wasn’t aware that much of anything had been done to resolve the conjectures.” He swallowed with some difficulty. “Such matters are reserved for study by the scientific community and do not fall within the ken of the diplomatic ministry.” Glancing up the beach, he saw that the other three Pitar had wandered off by themselves. Frolicking in the shallow water, Ymir and the two administrative assistants had moved far away.
The alien was very close to him now, and the sun and sand were very warm. “We have more latitude in such matters.” As she whispered to him, her hand moved from his arm. “As a dedicated servant of the Dominion, I am always ready to add to the growing body of scientific and cultural knowledge my people are accumulating about your kind. Experiments in the field need not always be officially authorized.”
There were questions he wanted to ask her, elucidations he sought, but as her hand moved he forgot all about them.
7
Heather Wixom struggled triumphantly to the top of the ridge. She could have taken a lifter there and had herself dropped off, but that would have denied her the sense of accomplishment she felt from having made the time-consuming ascent on her own. Technically, it had been easy: dense but navigable native forest; pauses to examine the indigenous wildlife while it hesitated long enough to stare at the slim, alien, human intrusion; and at the top, tolerant slopes that were kind to her booted feet.
From one of the larger boles directly below her rose the dirge of a gnarter. The tree itself put her in mind of a spruce with a skin problem, many of the evergreens that gave Treetrunk its popular name tending to shed copious amounts of bark at the slightest shift in the weather. As for the gnarter, it was a lumpy, eight-legged mass of slow-moving brown and dark blue fur that lived in selected tree hollows while regarding the world out of large, mournful eyes dominated by hourglass-shaped blue pupils. It had been suggested that