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array of glossy leaves and tendrils was spiraling up Ivan's leg. Red blossoms
slowly opened and closed, breathing a deep and delicate perfume, albeit the
total effect was unfortunately mouth-like. He stared in fascination for a full
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minute before murmuring, "Uh, Ivan . . . ? Don't move. But look at your left
boot."
As Miles watched, another tendril slowly wrapped itself around Ivan's knee
and began hoisting. Ivan glanced down, lurched, and swore. "What the hell is
it? Get it off me!"
"I doubt it's poisonous," said the protocol officer uncertainly. "But perhaps
you had better hold still."
"I ... think it's a climbing rose. Lively little thing, isn't it?" Miles grinned, and
bent nearer, cautiously checking for thorns before extending his hands. They
might be retractable or something. Colonel Vorreedi made a hesitant
restraining motion.
But before he mustered the nerve to risk skin and flesh, a plump ghem-lady
carrying a large basket hurried up the path. "Oh, there you are, you bad
thing!" she cried. "Excuse me, sir," she addressed Ivan without looking up,
kneeling by his boot and commencing to unwind her quarry. "Too much
nitrogen this morning, I'm afraid . . ."
The rose let go its last tendril from around Ivan's boot with a regretful recoil,
and was unceremoniously plunged into the basket with some other writhing
escapees, pink and white and yellow. The woman, her eyes darting here and
there at corners and under benches, hurried on.
"I think it liked you," said Miles to Ivan. "Pheromones?"
"Get stuffed," murmured Ivan back. "Or I'll dip you in nitrogen, and stake you
out under the . . . good God, what is this?"
They'd rounded a corner to an open area displaying a graceful tree, with large
fuzzy heart-shaped leaves filling two or three dozen branches that arced and
drooped again, swaying slightly with the burden of the podded fruit tipping
each branch. The fruit was mewing. Miles and Ivan stepped closer.
"Now . . . now that is just plain wrong," said Ivan indignantly.
Bundled upside down in each fruit pod was a small kitten, long and silky
white fur fluffing out around each feline face, framing ears and whiskers and
bright blue eyes. Ivan cradled one in his hand, and lifted it to his face for
closer examination. With one blunt finger he carefully tried to pet the
creature; it batted playfully at his hand with soft white front paws.
"Kittens like this should be out chasing string, not glued into damned trees to
score points for some ghem-bitch," Ivan opined hotly. He glanced around the
area; they were temporarily alone and unobserved.
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"Urn . . . I'm not so sure they're glued in," said Miles. "Wait, I don't think
you'd better-"
Trying to stop Ivan from rescuing a kitten from a tree was approximately as
futile as trying to stop Ivan from making a pass at a pretty woman. It was
some kind of spinal reflex. By the glint in his eye, he was bent on releasing all
the tiny victims, to chase after the climbing roses perhaps.
Ivan snapped the pod from the end of its branch. The kitten emitted a squall,
convulsed, and went still.
"Kitty, kitty . . . ?" Ivan whispered doubtfully into his cupped hand. An
alarming trickle of red fluid coursed from the broken stem across his wrist.
Miles pulled back the pod-leaves around the kitten's . . . corpse, he feared.
There was no back half to the beast. Pink naked legs fused together and
disappeared into the stem part of the pod.
"... I don't think it was ripe, Ivan."
"That's horrible!" Ivan's breath rasped in his throat with his outrage, but the
volume was pitched way down. By unspoken mutual consent, they sidled
quickly away from the kitten-tree and around the nearest unpeopled corner.
Ivan glanced around frantically for a place to dispose of the tiny corpse, and
so distance himself from his sin and vandalism. "Grotesque!"
Miles said thoughtfully, "Oh, I don't know. It's not any more grotesque than
the original method, when you think about it. I mean, have you ever watched
a mother cat give birth to kittens?"
Ivan covered his full hand with the other, and glared at his cousin. The
protocol officer studied Ivan's dismay with a mixture of exasperation and
sympathy. Miles thought that if he had known Ivan longer, the proportion of
the first emotion to the second would be much higher, but Vorreedi only said,
"My lord . . . would you like me to dispose of that for you . . . discreetly?"
"Uh, yes, please," said Ivan, looking very relieved. "If you don't mind." He
hastily palmed off the inert pod of fluff onto the protocol officer, who hid it in
a pocket handkerchief.
"Stay here. I'll be back shortly," he said, and went off to get rid of the
evidence.
"Good one, Ivan," growled Miles. "Want to keep your hands in your pockets
after this?"
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Ivan scrubbed at the sticky substance on his hand with his own handkerchief,
spat into his palm, and scrubbed again. Out, out, damned spot . . . "Don't you
start making noises like my mother. It wasn't my fault. . . . Things were a little [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
