Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [31]
Her feeling was quite sorrowful, and it had showed on Troi’s face, then and now.
“What’s the matter?” asked Odysseus.
“Nothing.”
As their eye contact continued a moment longer she became aware of something else in him, a longing. It seemed to be directed at her, though Odysseus showed no outward sign of it. It was subsumed, like his suffering, under some great guiding force, a confidence and strength which she still didn’t understand.
Two tall African men, apparently twins, came out of the thicket of statues. They said something to Odysseus in a language Troi didn’t recognize. The huge guard moved the door-stone so the twins could leave, then heaved it back in place.
Odysseus watched Troi as if gauging her reaction, and said, “They are the Nummo, named after mythological water-deities of the West African Dogon people.”
“I see.”
“This gentleman guarding the door is Nikitushka Lomov, the Volga barge-hauler of the Byliny epics.”
Troi waited to see where Odysseus was leading.
“Are you a Dissenter?” he asked.
“No, but I assume you are.”
“I am.”
“Then I can’t join your group. I’m a traveler, and I’m looking for my friends who are prisoners of the CS. I would be thankful for any information you might give me that would help. That’s all I can say.”
“Why aren’t you looking among the CS? Why are you here?”
“I knew there were tunnels that would lead me in the right direction. I didn’t know there were people down here.”
“But you do now. You know the location of Alastor. That means we can’t risk letting you go, because you could be a CS informer. You’ll have to stay with us, at least for now.”
He said it as though he were annoyed, but Troi perceived that he was actually glad she would have to stay.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said. “Lives depend on me. The CS will execute my people if I don’t help them immediately.”
“What did they do? Are they Dissenters?”
“No—but they have violated the same laws that your Dissenters do.”
“But you still can’t tell me who you are.”
“That’s for your protection as well as mine.”
“Then for my protection, you’ll have to stay,” said Odysseus.
“But you saw my reaction when you mentioned those mythological characters. You were testing me.”
“I was. It meant little. The CS have tricked us before; you could be another trick.”
“You don’t believe I’m a trick. And why should I believe you? If you’re Odysseus, where is your ship and crew? And do you have a wife named Penelope, and a son named Telemachos?”
His face grew as hard as the statues behind him.
“I don’t want to talk about my wife and son. All you need to know about me is that I’m Odysseus. I’m different than the other people who live here. They’re experts in many stories, but I actually am a story.”
Now Troi could sense his emotions in greater detail. She understood that the mythical Odysseus persona, with its strength and determination, its quality of being ‘never at a loss,’ served as a support, a guiding principle on which he leaned the full weight of his life’s suffering.
And his suffering had something to do with his wife and son. She’d sensed that quite clearly when he spoke of them.
“If I were from the CS,” she said, “would I have asked you that question—with those mythical names?”
“You’re tired,” he said, ignoring her question. “Let me show you where you can rest.”
He started to walk.
Troi didn’t let herself become angry, but kept her emotional distance from the situation. She was trapped for the time being; there was no way she could get past that huge guard and the door boulder. Assuming there was no other exit—and she intended to check that if she could—then the best she could do was to figure Odysseus out and get his cooperation.
She put herself in her clinical frame of mind—something she did so often in her life it was reflex—but now, for some reason, it produced in her an unfamiliar aching melancholy. She didn’t stop to think