Chameleon in Chrome Ch. 09

Daniella stood beside him changed now into her more feral form once more and she looked back, beckoning her cousin to come inside out of the rain.

They looked at each other for a few seconds and Maria came as close to the threshold as she could while not actually stepping over it.

He noticed this and tilted his head, "We do not know each other and we obviously come from different places. Am I doing something wrong? You seem to be a little nervous here - and I can understand it after ... well, earlier this evening - "

She muttered a very quiet phrase to herself in Spanish and then seemed to force herself further. "Hombre, ... por favor, why you don't got any clothes?"

He stared a little and then looked at himself, then back at her, "I have fur. This is how I was made. This is how all of my kind look - unless the environment requires ... "

He trailed off then.

Now it was her turn to tilt her head for a moment, "So ... where you come from ... everyone looks like ..."

He nodded, and Daniella whispered, "His people aren't like us. This is how they look, all the time, I guess."

She looked at D'Jymm and he nodded with a shrug.

Maria shook her head and muttered to herself again but looked up and grinned, "Madre, I don't know this place, where you come from, but I think I like it. Do they have bus tours to there?"

"Look, I want to come inside, but I ... I had very bad day, see? I ... have nowhere to go now but I worry, if you understand me."

He smiled a little and stepped back to give her room, "Please ... I will not hurt you. I am happy to be speaking with other people again."

She forced herself to come inside and she looked down at the water which dripped from her. When she looked up, he was just coming back onto the flight deck with cloth bundles in his hand. She was startled.

He held out a pair of bathrobes.

"You can move very fast," she nodded, "I see this before, outside."

Daniella shook her head, "The things that I saw him do, I think some of his fine fur must have rubbed off against the night, he was so fast."

He shrugged, "I still do not understand much of what I see in this place, but I saw that what Daniella told me was correct. Men who would kill small children because they have fur like their lovely mothers." He shook his head, "I saw that and I could not run fast enough to protect them and you."

He watched the women set their little ones down and use some of the robes to dry them a little.

Maria looked up, her eyes yellow with irises shaped like a cat's, "You make it sound like we are welcome to be here."

He nodded, "If the mountain does not kill us all under a mudslide before I repair my vessel, you both may need to make decisions. I do not know what you might want for yourselves, but I do not think that this place is a good one for the young ones to grow in.

"But I cannot take off - when I do - and just go somewhere else on this world to set down again. When I am ready, I will just go. I will go to a world where my clan has gone to see what kind of life there is there."

He looked at them both for a moment, "But it may be that most of the people there are like me, and we are neither human nor Nahuals. I know of a trading world on the way. I have been there before and there are many types of people there. It might be a better place for you - certainly better than this."

"Tell us more later," Daniella said, quietly, "after the little ones are asleep."

Her remark caused D'Jymm to squat and look at the children in this better light. They were small, but they made him smile, a thing that their mothers noticed right away. The boy was similar to his mother, Daniella. The little cat girl looked so much like Maria, right down to her dark fur and gleaming eyes.

They peered at him for a moment, unsure of him, and then the boy reached up and touched his knee. The girl saw it and hugged his shin, her decision made.

"They're always nervous these days," Daniella whispered, "Where did that come from?"

"Ah," Maria laughed softly, "she's like her mother."

Daniella blinked, "So you want to hug his leg too?"

"A little higher, if I can have my wish," her cousin grinned.

He looked up, "I do not know much about the ways of your kind, but for Nahuals, does it go like this? I thought that in some time, a person - a human person, learns of the relationship with their guiding animal. If there is skill in the natural magic ways, then changing shapes becomes possible.

"What am I looking at here? I see such beautiful young ones, but ... is it not too soon by your ways?"

Daniella shrugged, "Yes, but ours are different. We don't know why or how, but they spend almost all of their time like this. They learn very quickly and they were both such good babies. Even now, they listen and try to speak properly. Maybe they just have this and prefer to be furry."

"Or maybe," Maria said, "the gods decided that to move ahead, children like them are needed now."

"Maybe the reason is something simple," he mused. "In the human way, at their age, children try to run, but I have seen that they are really only doing much the same as when they walk, only they try to do it more quickly. Like this, they are more stable on four feet and so they can manage a faster speed."

"It makes sense," Maria nodded.

He looked up for a moment in some thought. "The climate control will detect the increased moisture from ... us, and I am sure that you will all feel cold very soon. I hope that the robes will help and I am adjusting it now."

He looked up and she'd already put the robe on and was looking a little thankful.

He pointed, "Could you please press the green panel there? It will close the door. The red one opens it."

Maria nodded and closed the door.

"I was about to eat my evening meal. You all must be hungry. The dining area is this way."

He turned and they watched his black, fur-covered bottom walk away. He didn't see it of course, but they were smiling. Other than the nice-looking bottom, they found that they really liked his tail.

"The others, where he is from, they all look like him?" Maria asked quietly, "Are you sure that he is not something like us?"

Daniella shook her head, "He's not. But he is sensitive in how he can just feel things around him. I saw him shoot a man while not even looking at him. He was looking somewhere else at the floaters and they were still far away. When the one he was aiming at began to move, THEN he shot him - and still he wasn't looking. The way that it went, nobody could have made that shot with a pistola from more than a hundred feet - between the eyes, cousin."

He motioned them over to the selection panel. "Please choose whatever you might wish to eat."

Maria looked at the list for a few seconds, "I don't read inglese so good. You mean I choose what I want and I get it?"

He nodded and she consulted the list again.

"I was going to suggest the chicken soup. It's hot when you get it and it might warm you -"

She laughed, pointing "This one. Texmex. I can have this?"

He looked confused, but nodded and pointed, "Yes, of course. Press the spot next to it."

There was a chime that the selection was noted and that there was enough of her selection in inventory to proceed. Daniella went for the pork dinner with barbeque sauce.

They sat facing each other at one of the tables, eating and beginning to chat a little. He learned that they'd both been born in the area and that they'd also both gone north to attend universities in Mexico.

Maria said, "Then there was trouble here, and there was trouble for my family later before I come back. It was the same for Daniella. After years when the refinery stood quiet, somebody in the city somewhere buys it and announces that they will take it apart. This was supposed to happen already many years ago but now they say it again.

"There were killings. Many people, they move away. That is why the refinery is still there like that. The men who are supposed to take it apart, one was found ripped open on the road. He was coming back from the bar at night alone. All of them go after that. The town is almost empty again, and there are some people who think that all of this is the fault of ... "

She stopped and he reached out to lightly touch her hand and she looked up at him.

"Nahuals?"

She nodded, "Stupid, superstitious fools. A Nahual is how you know your way through the world, a creature a ... an animal spirit to show the way.

"Being a Nahual is how some people are born. If you don' know the gods ... the faith ... in the way, you can never learn. If you have the beginning ... to know the way that a brujo can know ..."

Daniella leaned forward, "She's talking about sorcerers now."

Maria continued. "There are always a few anywhere you go. Most of them don' even know this about themselves. Most of them never learn to ... do it, make the change."

She tilted her head at him again, "You know of this already, yes? You seem like one, but you don' feel like one to me."

"I know the word," he nodded, "but I only learned it the other morning from a sign on the fence. I had to look it up to find out what it meant." His eyebrows rose and he nodded, turning to Daniella, "It makes sense now. You must be a Nahual too and those men. They were trying - "

She nodded, "Si. They catch me and they try to make me to change. They burn me with silver on my skin. If I change, they would see and kill me."

Maria said, "If you die when you are wolf or what animal you can be, then you stay that way. They have proof then and nobody cares that they killed you."

He nodded, "I believe that they'd have killed you anyway, eventually. I did not notice any real thought there."

He looked at her curiously, "Why ...?

"Why didn't you burn them? I felt that you have this ability. I gave you the chance. The way that it was burning when I looked before you came here, it was burning much hotter in the rain than any fuel could make it burn. So that was you.

"For that matter, why did you come here like this, wearing clothes? If I am correct in what I feel about you, you could even have come in here and changed right then." He smiled a little, "You'd already be warm right now."

She shook her head, "All of my life, I have had to hide this about me. I am used to hiding. Outside, I knew what you were trying to do. I wanted to do it. But they said to me that what I am, it makes murder. They said that Nahuals always kill. I did not want to do this - but also ... I did want it."

D'jymm nodded, "I understand. I think that you had a good reason. I'm sure that they would have killed you.

"If you look at it from outside the culture, humans have some very strange laws. If you had been successful while fighting for your life against those four by killing them, that would not be considered murder. But if you were fighting as a Nahual, then they would think that you were guilty."

He chuckled, "A good thing that no one saw what I did. Though I had my reasons."

She thought for a moment before holding out her hand, "Amigo, you make me feel much better."

"Wait," Maria grinned, "I never heard your name, Hombre. What do we call you?"

He smiled, "I am D'Jymm."

She wondered about it, "Jim?"

He shook his head, "Not quite. D'Jymm, my name is D'Jymm."

She nodded, "That is what I thought I heard, 'Jim'."

Daniella put her head down and laughed softly.

He smiled, "It will suffice then.

"By the way, Maria. I am not a Nahual. This is how I am. I cannot change."

She looked puzzled, "But you said you could feel. In Daniella, you said."

He nodded, "Yes.

"I think that on many worlds, there is quite often something about certain individuals that is natural but hidden. For the way that we are talking here, let's call it magic, the ability to make or to use magic. I am not from Earth, but where I come from; some of the people have it too. My mother had it quite strongly, so to me as a child it was a feeling that was almost always around me. I only felt something missing when I was not near her.

"It feels quite different to me here, but I do feel it from you both, so I knew that you could probably have burned them yourself, if you were not restrained and if you could have cleared your thoughts."

Daniella shrugged, "I guess. But after all these years and what they have done to us, I had no idea if what I wanted to do would work. It wasn't until I walked by there later that I decided to try and I learned that you were right. I could have defended myself better than what I did.

"I learned from you again and I thank you."

Maria's eyes narrowed a little as she looked at him, "Wait. Where are you from?"

He grinned a little, "Not from here."

"Please tell us where you come from," Maria sighed a little plaintively. "You are not human, you are not a Nahual either, but I like to talk with you very much. Unless I am with Daniella, I am always alone since my parents were killed."

Daniella nodded, "The same for me. First my father when I was at school. They killed my husband and we had not even been back here for a day coming back from university. My mother and I moved into a building at the refinery because it had several doors which were strong steel and we could defend ourselves there."

He nodded, "That was when the signs appeared, warning that the place was haunted and then that there were Nahuals there?"

Daniella nodded, "Si, the same stupid cabrons. They killed my mother when I was away in a town north of here working at a job. When I came home, I found her hanging there with her hands tied. I live there in that place still, but I move around, always looking for a new shelter with locking steel doors."

She looked down, "But not anymore. The men from the town, they found every place. All that is left is the place where you saw me go. It was where I was born, but also, it was where they killed my father. Now I have nowhere to live that is safe, nowhere that I can raise my son without fear. We will have to live in the forest like animals. The cabrons will be happy."

Her little boy began to fuss over his dinner wanting to hold the spoon for himself and she apologized, "He sometimes has trouble eating in the evening if he's been upset during the day - like today. Is there someplace where I can give him my breast?"

D'Jymm nodded, "You have choices, Daniella. There is no shame in my culture if a mother feeds her child anywhere, so I would not mind. If you seek privacy, you can go anywhere you like. There is no one else on this vessel but us."

"I would go too, if it is not being impolite," Maria said, "The sooner that I get it done, the sooner I can put her down to sleep and I know that my arms would be happy for it. We both wanted to stop a long time ago now, but when you live like we do, you never know where your food will come from. Hard to raise a little one that way."

D'Jymm smiled and nodded.

---

Maria found her cousin sitting on the bed of the first cabin that she looked into, feeding her young son. She sat down too and began to nurse her girl.

"What are you doing?" Maria asked.

"What do you mean?" Daniella asked as a reply.

"You seemed to be getting along very well with him," Maria said.

Daniella bristled, "And what is wrong with that, cousin? I have nothing. My boy has nothing. No place to live, no way to earn money, no way to buy food, No god dammed future but a grave very soon."

She shook her head, "We cannot live like this".

"You like him," Maria declared.

"YES!" Daniella nodded, "And so? What is wrong if I like him, cousin?

"He saved us, saved our lives for nothing, he just did it. He came from right here and ran with me to save your ass and our children only because I asked him to help."

Maria pulled out her big gun in this discussion, "He's not human, Daniella."

"GOOD!" Daniella snapped.

"We never did anything to any of them," she said, fighting off the sob that she felt. "None of us ever harmed a single stupid one of them, and they killed most of the town in twenty years, didn't they? Men, women, children, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, fathers, uncles, aunts, EVERYONE! A good thing that the place was nearly empty to begin with, isn't it?"

She leaned forward, her whispers sounding cold as they passed hissing from her lips, "Have you been keeping count, Maria? Twenty years. Twenty-eight people, and I am not even adding the cattle they killed to break the farmers along the way. How many were there like us? Six? Ten?

"And what was our terrible crime, that they came hunting us, you and I?

"Besides what we can turn into, we are just two women who were close as they grew up and had been apart for the time that we were at different schools up north. We came back here and they murdered our men, both within a month.

"Remember that winter? We were alone and pregnant, though we didn't show it then. You and I were looking at life with our broken hearts and all that we had was each other again. Everything else had been taken away!

"So we did something evil in their stupid eyes and made love with the only one that either of us had left in the world. The only comfort that I could find in this world was in your arms.

"They kicked in the door and we had to run for our lives in our nakedness."

"But he's an anim-"

Daniella's hand shot out and covered Maria's mouth. "Don't!

"Don't you dare say that to me. You think what's happened out there - around here ... you think that HE'S the one who is a beast?

"Do you?

"He is probably more civilised than I am, considering where I was raised and where I've lived. He has better manners than anyone I've ever met but one person and she was from the same place that he is from! . And he has had some thoughts of our comfort, yours and mine.

"Does an animal bring you a bathrobe because he worries that you might feel cold? Does an animal do that because you are wet from the torrential rains of a hurricane? Does an animal like that reason that since you are wet and where you are is air-conditioned that you might catch cold so he worries about you?

"Grow a fucking brain, Maria.

"When I was at school up north, I went to one Christmas party and I saw his kind there. They really like Christmas, those animals as you call them. They don't understand about Jesus and all of that, but they take the message about peace and good will very seriously. I spoke with one girl there; she was so tall and lovely. I really liked her soft accent.

"We talked about all sorts of things and I found her so intelligent and charming. She knew more about human culture than I ever will. She acted more civilised than anyone else who was there. And in her very cultured way, she told me that she wanted me because she knew what I am under my human skin.

"She said that she thought that we were enough alike for her heart. She actually said that to me.

"Maria, I could have lost my heart - and I make no joke here. If I'd been there alone, I swear that I'd have fallen. Instead, I was there with Caesar and he was already drunk and embarrassing himself.

"She kissed me. Only once to say goodbye and I still remember her kiss and how the tip of her tongue tasted, and it didn't taste like when your dog is so happy to see you that he licks your face just when you open your mouth by accident.

"I don't know about you Maria, but several times in my life, I have had moments where I knew that I was standing at a crossroad, a place in time where your choice in one instant will change the course of your life.

"That was one of mine.

"I will never forget how wonderful she smelled to me, the way that her fur felt, her voice and the sweet taste of the tip of her tongue."

She looked down, and Maria saw the tear on her cheek. "But I had to get Caesar out of there, and I thought of my wonderful home here. I thought of how I'd taken a man as my husband for the rest of my life and I thought of you and how I love you."