• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'I'm Forrester and this is my partner Cwej,' said Roz.

'I know,' said S-Lioness happily. 'You're the one who threw up at saRa!qava's party and your partner is Dep's latest boyfriend.'

Roz's heart sank. This was going to be even harder than she'd thought.

'Benny. Come in,' said saRa!qava. 'You look awful.' It was true, Bernice's face was pale and her eyes were shadowed somehow, as if by remembered pain.

'Do I?' said Bernice. 'I can't think why.'

'I was just trying out a new strain of yeast.'

'That's nice.'

'Are you sure you're all right?'

'No,' said Bernice, 'I'm not sure at all.'

'Why don't you sit down,' said saRa!qava, 'and I'll get you a hot mug of stomach warmer.'

Bernice slumped into a kitchen chair. SaRa!qava bit her lip thoughtfully as she hand-prepared the flavoured bovine lactate. Funny, she thought, how you always wanted to prepare comforting drinks by hand as if you were trying to infuse some of your humanness into the liquid. She had done the same thing the first time Dep's heart had been broken – and promised to let her build a new glider against her better judgement – right here in this kitchen.

Bernice took the drink listlessly and sipped it. 'Caramel,' she said. 'Thank you. So how is the new strain of yeast coming on?'

'You don't want to talk about yeast,' said saRa!qava.

'That's the trouble,' said Bernice. 'What I want to talk about, I can't talk about.'

'I'm Sorry.'

'That's all right, it's not your fault. Not even anything to do with you,' said Bernice. 'I shouldn't be laying this stuff on you.'

'Listening to someone's problems is practically the definition of friendship,' said saRa!qava.

'Are we friends?' asked Bernice.

'To the bitter end,' said saRa!qava. 'Do you doubt it?'

Bernice looked at her for a long time before seeming to make a decision. 'Have you ever had another person be completely dependent on you – literally their life depends on you?'

'You've never had children, have you?' asked saRa!qava. Bernice shook her head. 'Dep was my first and I remember all the things I couldn't do when I was pregnant. Especially after she started talking to me.'

'Talking to you?'

'Well, not exactly talking but definitely communicating.'

'What did she talk about?'

'What do you think, gimme this, gimme that, eat that, eat this.' She laughed at the memory.

'She had this total aversion to seafood and she used to kick me hard if I even thought about crustaceans.'

Bernice was smiling. It wasn't much of a smile, just a twitch at the corners of her mouth but it was a start.

'She wasn't much better after she was born,' said saRa!qava. 'Puke at one end and shit at the other with wailing in between. And just when I thought it was time to hand her over to the Masochistic Parent Interest Group she would look at me with those big eyes and demand my unconditional love.'

'You can't argue with that,' said Bernice, 'can you. It's a biological imperative.'

'Rubbish,' said saRa!qava, 'nothing's truly genetic. I made a decision to conceive Dep for my own reasons and I had to accept the consequences of my actions. Dependency is a powerful psychological weapon and small children use it unmercifully. Don't get the wrong idea; I know how things go down in other "civilizations". I had free choices and unlimited resources at every stage. I don't know how I would have behaved if I was one of those slave-wives; perhaps I would have drowned Dep at birth.'

Bernice had stopped smiling. 'No,' she said, 'I doubt that.'

'One can only hope so and give thanks for what one's got,' said saRa!qava. 'And live with the consequences.'

AM!xitsa intercepted them on the path leading over the headland and wouldn't let them anywhere near the cove.

'Come on, aM!xitsa,' said kiKhali, talking at organic speeds for agRaven's benefit. 'What have you got hidden back there?'

'None of your business,' said aM!xitsa.

'Fair enough,' said kiKhali. 'But I've got my ship on my back and it really wants to know what it is you've been doing for the last three months. So come on, give