The Lani People by Jesse F. Bone (types of ebook readers txt) đź“•
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- Author: Jesse F. Bone
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“Not without you,” Kennon said. “Don’t you understand that I love you?”
“And I you. But I am a Lani. You are a man.”
“You’re as human as I am,” Kennon said abruptly.
“That is what you say,” Copper replied. “I am not so sure. I need more proof than this.” She waved her hand at the ship.
“What proof do you need?”
“The same as the proof you men require. If I should have your child, then I would believe that I was human.”
“I’ve told you a thousand times that the radiation on this ship must have affected Ulf and Lyssa’s germ plasm. Can’t you understand that?”
“I can understand it all right, but it does not change things. Ulf and Lyssa may have been human before they came here, but they were not when they landed. They were Lani, and their children were Lani.”
“But they were of human stock.”
“The law that lets men become our masters does not agree with you.”
“Then the law is wrong. It should be changed.”
Copper shrugged. “Two people cannot change a law.”
“They can try—particularly if the law is unjust.”
Copper sighed. “Is it not enough for us to love? Must you try to run through a wall?”
“When the wall stands in the way of right and justice I must.”
Copper looked at him with pity in her green eyes. “This I do not understand. I know nothing of right and justice. What are these things? Just words. Yet you will endanger our happiness for them. If it is my happiness you wish—then leave this foolishness alone. I have fifteen years I can live with you before I am old and you tire of me. With those years I can be content.”
“But I can’t,” Kennon said. “Call me selfish if you wish, but I want you with me as long as I live. I don’t want to live my life without you.”
“You want too much,” Copper said softly. “But if it makes you happy to try to get it, I shall help. And if we do not succeed you will at least be happier for trying. And if you are happy”—she shrugged—“then the rest makes little difference.”
That was the crux of the matter, Kennon reflected bitterly. He was convinced she was human. She was not. And until her mind could be changed on that point she would help him but her heart wouldn’t be in it. And the only thing that would convince her that she was human would be a child—a child of his begetting. He could perhaps trick her with an artificial insemination of Lani sperm. There were drugs that could suspend consciousness, hypnotics that would make her believe anything she was told while under their influence.
But in the end it would do no good. All witnesses in Brotherhood court actions were examined under psychoprobe, and a hypnotic was of no value against a lie detector that could extract the deepest buried truth. And he would be examined too. The truth would out—and nothing would be gained. In fact—everything would be lost. The attempt at trickery would prejudice any court against the honest evidence they had so painfully collected.
He sighed. The only thing to do was to go on as they were—and hope that the evidence would hold. With Betan legal talent at their back it might. And, of course, they could try to produce a child as nature had intended. They could try—but Kennon knew it would not succeed. It never had.
CHAPTER XV
Copper had been acting strangely of late, Kennon thought as he rolled over in his bed and watched her standing before the full-length mirror on the bathroom door. She pivoted slowly before the glass, eying herself critically, raising her arms over her head, holding them at her sides, flexing her supple spine and tightening muscles that moved like silken cords beneath her golden skin.
“What are you trying to do—become a muscle dancer?” Kennon asked idly.
She whirled, a crimson blush deepening the tan of her face. “You were supposed to be asleep,” she said.
“I’m an unregenerate heel,” he replied, “and I don’t sleep too well nowadays unless you’re beside me.”
“Well—I suppose you might as well know now as later,” she said. “You’ll know in any event.”
“Know what?”
“That you’re right. I am human.”
“And what brought on this sudden change of—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes widening.
“Yes,” Copper said. “I am with child. Your child.”
“But that’s impossible.”
She shook her head. “It’s a miracle perhaps, but it’s not impossible. It’s happened. Can’t you see the difference?”
“See what? You look just as you always do.”
“I suppose you can’t see it yet,” she admitted. “But I am with child. I’m two weeks past my time.”
Kennon’s mind leaped to the obvious conclusion. Pseudo-pregnancy. He had seen it before among Lani at Hillside Farm. It was an odd syndrome which occasionally occurred in humans and animals. The brain, desiring children, made demands upon the body and the body responded to its desire by tricking the brain. Lani were fairly subject to it probably because they had better imaginations. He would run a few tests when they went down to the hospital, and once she realized the practical joke her body was playing everything would be all right. No wonder she seemed excited.
“We’ll find out about that later,” he said equably. “We’ll settle this when we get back to the hospital.”
Copper smiled confidently and patted her stomach. “I know what you are thinking, but you’re wrong. We Lani know about these things. In forty generations I am the first to conceive as the Master intended.”
“I hope you haven’t,” Kennon said with such bitter sincerity that Copper looked at him wide-eyed. “Not now. Because if you have, neither your life nor mine is safe.”
“Why?”
“The Alexanders. Do you think they’ll take it lying down? We’re not ready for them yet. They’ll fight, and the first thing they’ll do is kill you and erase me so we would never be able to talk. You have been declared an animal, and you will not be allowed to change.”
“What can we do?” Copper asked. She shivered. “I do not want to die.”
“Nor do I want you to,” Kennon said.
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