As always, Raef was intact, in superb condition, and actively dreaming. This longer journey they were presently embarked on would give Tug more opportunities for waking Raef and discoursing with him. Perhaps even enough opportunities for Tug to finish extracting his knowledge and memories of old Earth. Those factual accounts would provide a marvelous backdrop to his analysis of Human fictions regarding that time. He was sure that the final product would be a multifaceted presentation such as the Elders had never seen before, and a certain guarantee of a comfortable old age and many breeding cycles. Tug gave a gurgle of satisfaction.
Captain and crew; John and Connie. It would be the longest cruise of John’s career, and Tug would have to be particularly careful of the Humans’ health during the longer Waitsleep intervals. It was time for more than a cursory check of their readings. Tug drifted across his chambers, rested feelers on two separate sets of pulses. Both Humans were fine. John’s temperature was half a degree cooler than Connie’s, but that seemed to be the norm for him. Tug carefully positioned two smaller feelers over each pulse point and stimulated Evangeline’s system, simulating her body’s reaction to a mild scare. Within a few moments the pulse nodules on his chamber walls quickened their pace as Evangeline’s body responded to his interference. The increase in stimulation was passed on to John and Connie through the tubes of their wombs. Both bodies responded as expected as they entered the toning and dreaming cycle. As Evangeline recovered, their metabolisms would gradually slow back to a dormant state.
A separate bank of instruments, Human made and laboriously installed by Arthroplana centuries ago, let him monitor their Human quarters inside the gondola. All readings there were normal. All readings there had always been normal. Even after all this time, there were moments when the artificiality of the Human equipment, its geometric shapes of metals and plastics, struck him as bizarre. All of his own interfacing with the Beast was done biologically. He wondered how long Human evolution would have to be guided before their mechanical barriers between species were replaced with biological interfaces.
For a moment Tug toyed with the idea of awakening Connie and talking with her. When she had returned to the ship with the tapes, he had sensed a subtle change in her attitude toward him. It should be explored; it was probably John’s doing. But the Beastship’s schedule didn’t call for her to be awakened for another five Human years, and he had no real justification for breaking schedule. Only his own curiosity, and John never considered that a valid reason. John was dry as old bones when it came to curiosity. He wasn’t fresh meat like Connie. Tug savored his simile and metaphor proudly. He was becoming certain that he had mastered the forms, regardless of John’s contempt for his efforts. John was old bones in that he and Tug had conversed so often that there was nothing new in his mind to nourish Tug’s curiosity. And Connie was fresh meat in that she was much newer to the crew, and offered much new information and anecdotes to nourish Tug’s curiosity, just as fresh meat had once nourished Humans when they were predatory carnivores. Yes, dry old bones and fresh meat. He almost awakened Connie just so he could try the simile and the metaphor out on her.
She intrigued him. Her satisfaction at bringing him his recordings had astonished him. So much triumph to attach to the minor circumventing of a rule. He had tried to explain to her that what they had done was not wrong. The tapes would be biodegraded, in fact Evangeline’s physical system would break them down far more completely than the standard methods prescribed by the Conservancy. All she had really done was to postpone their processing until Tug could scan them, and make duplicates of the more interesting ones. But her elation had not faded with his explanation. Like Raef, there was much about her he could not understand. He sensed a reserve within her that would bear careful exploration. But this voyage would allow him the opportunities to break down her barriers, too.
She was very young, and the Evangeline was only the second Beast she’d been within. When John was awake, she tried to be all business. And when she was alone, she always seemed surprised when Tug spoke to her. Still, he was convinced her reticence hid secrets rather than hostility like John’s. He would prise them out of her, but with patience and tact. His long-ago baiting of John had been an error. He had thought that in anger, John would reveal more of his true self. Instead, he had shut down communication with Tug almost completely. Tug expected it would take him another century before he could wear through John’s resentment and finish exploring the man.
Connie’s records had been easy to access, compared to John’s. He’d learned that most of her education blocks had been devoted to the sciences rather than the classics. Mariner had been her first career choice, and Dirty-Tech Engineer her second. She had managed to get her first choice, even though it was not within the top ten options her aptitude tests had suggested. He should have found her boring. But the few conversations Tug had had with her led him to believe that she was more of a kindred spirit than John, despite the captain’s first option as a Poet. Perhaps with time Tug could educate her, make her a fitting companion for him on these longer voyages. She seemed the sort who could appreciate verbal playfulness, the niceties of a pun and the wilder pleasures of parody, perhaps even enter into the passion of dissecting a poem full of metaphor and simile and symbolism, layer by layer. Not like John who only became irritated when Tug tinkered with the words of the old Earth poets. Connie, he thought, might be educated.
Despite her reluctance, he had programmed some poetry onto her sleep-learning access. Introducing her to the classics could only make her more interesting. He looked forward to discussing them with her when she came out of Wakesleep for her required alert time.
But not yet. Not for months. He gurgled deeper in self-denial as he turned away from the pulse points and diaphragms and meters and gauges that enabled him to monitor the Human complement of the ship. No, his mental and emotional nourishment must be put off until his body had replenished itself and until Evangeline’s need for mental stimulation had been satisfied. Evangeline had recently grazed her way through a narrow asteroid belt, and the bulk she had taken on was now digested sufficiently that Tug could take his share from his Beast.
Tug drifted across his chamber to where a gas artery rippled the wall, and aligned his flukelike midsection with the engorged vein. He melded his midsection to the Beast’s artery and punched his scolex into the feeding scar. They began their exchange of gases and mineral slurry. Neural ganglia writhed out from Evangeline in response to their joining, and Tug craned his foresection down to allow them to dock with his receptors. He tried to pay attention to her simplistic whining.
Evangeline was unhappy. There were no other Beasts out here. There weren’t any Beasts to mate with and only dust to graze on. There was nothing interesting out here. Only bare dead places. Evangeline wanted to go back.
Carefully, simply, Tug explained. If they went out here now, when they came back later there would be many good things for her. Captain John would be very pleased with her, and she would get much slag from the station. All would be harmonious.
But there were no Beasts out here to mate her.
He stung her quickly and gently, without barbs, carefully injecting just enough inhibitor to quiet