Read Foreigner for Free Online

The sash settled with little clinks as its brass and copper ornaments touched the deck.
    Alive. After all this time, at least some small part of the ship was alive.
    Novato went down the corridor as fast as she dared in the darkness, anxious to get a fresh lamp and return to examine whatever she had found. Finally, she caught sight of a pale rectangle of light along the corridor: the double-doored room. The inner door was wide open; the outer one jammed half-closed, just as it had been ever since her son Toroca had first entered the ship three kilodays ago. Novato shouldered her way through, cool night air pouring in from outside. The fit was getting tighter all the time; eventually the growth that would go on until her death would prevent her from squeezing into the ship.
    She stumbled out onto the wooden scaffolding. It was early evening, the sun having just set. Still, after so long in absolute darkness, the five moons visible overhead blazed like wild flames.
    Captain Keenir of the Dasheter slowly regained his senses. He pushed himself off the carcass of the bizarre yellow being and staggered back a few paces along the beach, a look of horror on his face.
    “What have I done?” he said, leaning on his tail for support, his gravelly voice a half-whimper. “What have I done?” The captain looked down. His arms were covered with drying blood up to the elbows, and his entire muzzle was crusted over with red. He brought his hands to his face and tried to wipe the blood from there. “What have I done?” he said once more.
    Toroca looked at the dead body. It had been badly mauled. Before coming out of the territorial madness, Keenir had bolted down three large strips of flesh, cleaning the neck, shoulders, and most of the back of meat.
    Toroca had backed away and was now about twenty paces from Keenir. “Why did you kill it?” he said.
    The captain’s voice was low. “I — I don’t know. It — it must have invaded my territory…”
    Toroca’s tail swished in negation. “No. It was nowhere near you. You saw it, and went, well, berserk.”
    “It was evil. It had to die. It was a threat.”
    “How, Keenir? How did it threaten you?”
    Keenir’s voice was faint. “It had to die,” he said again. He staggered toward the lapping water at the edge of the beach, crouched down, and tried to wash his hands. The water turned pink, but his hands weren’t really coming clean. He scooped up some wet sand and rubbed it over them, scouring the blood away. He kept rubbing his hands, so much so that Toroca thought they’d end up covered in the captain’s own blood, but at last he stopped. He splashed water on his face in an attempt to clean his muzzle.
    There was a point where the lush vegetation stuck right out to the water’s edge. Suddenly there was movement in that brush, and for one horrible moment Toroca thought it was another of the strange yellow creatures, come to avenge its comrade’s death. But it was only Babnol and Spalton, the other two surveyors, who had made their own landing south of here.
    But then he saw their faces.
    Muzzles slick with blood.
    “Toroca,” said Babnol, her voice tremulous. “I think Spalton and I just did a terrible thing…”

*4*
    By now, Afsan’s eyes had grown back to full size, black orbs filling the once-empty sockets. His lids had sagged for so long that they’d developed permanent fold marks that showed as yellow lines now that they were filled out from underneath.
    And yet, despite his new eyes, Afsan still could not see.
    After his lunch with Dybo, Afsan walked the short distance to the imperial surgery and once again opened his lids so that Dar-Mondark could look at his new eyes.
    “And you still can’t see anything?” said Mondark.
    “That’s right.”
    “Not even vague shapes? No hint of light? Nothing?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Your eyes look fine, Afsan. They look like they should work.”
    Afsan’s tail swished gently. “When I was young, I once traded some