The Jaguar Hunter by Perseus

Author:Perseus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Fiction
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2001-08-06T04:02:15+00:00

Cassiopeia sprang to her feet and stepped out into the clearing. Her expression was grim, and I was worried that she might have worked herself into a rage by rehashing the killing. But she only walked a few paces away. Silvered by the moonlight, she looked unnaturally slim, and it seemed more than ever that I was seeing an approximation of her original form. The snakes had grown dead still in the trench.

“You didn’t really kill him,” I said.

“I would have,” she said. “But never again.” She kicked at a pile of conch shells and sent them clattering down.

“What happened then?”

She did not answer for a moment, gazing out toward the sound of the reef. “I was sickened by the changes I’d undergone,” she said. “I became a hermit, and after Ezekiel died I continued my hermitage in Carl’s body. That poor soul!” She walked a little farther away. “I taught him to hide whenever men visited the Burying Ground. He lived like a wild animal, grubbing for roots, fishing with his bare hands. At the time it seemed the kindest thing I could do. I wanted to cleanse him of the taint of humanity. Of course that proved impossible... for both of us.”

“You know,” I said, “with all the technological advances these days, you might be able to contact...”

“Don’t you think I’ve considered my prospects!” she said angrily; and then, in a quieter tone, “I used to hope that human science would permit me to return home someday, but I’m not sure I want to anymore. I’ve been perverted by this culture. I’d be as repulsive to my people as Ezekiel was to Robert Mullins, and I doubt that I’d be comfortable among them myself.”

I should have understood the finality of her loneliness -- she had been detailing it in her story. But I understood now. She was a mixture of human and alien, spiritually a half-breed, gone native over a span of two centuries. She had no people, no place except this patch of sand and mangrove, no tradition except the clearing and the snakes and a game made of broken shells. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s not your fault, Frank,” she said, and smiled. “It’s your American heritage that makes you tend to enshrine the obvious.”

“Ray and I aren’t a fair sample,” I said defensively.

“I’ve known other Americans,” she said. “They’ve all had that tendency. Everyone down here thought they were fools when they first came. They seemed totally unaware of the way things worked, and no one understood that their tremendous energy and capacity for deceit would compensate. But they were worse than either the pirates or the Spanish.”

Without another word, she turned and walked toward the brush.

“Wait!” I said. I was eager to hear about her experiences with Americans.

“You can come back tomorrow, Frank,” she said. “Though maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” Then, thinking that she might have some personal reason for distrusting Americans, I said,

“I won’t hurt you. I don’t believe I’m physically capable of it.”

“What a misleading way to measure security,” she said.

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