Halfway Human Read online

  I had never heard of a bland sleeping in a private room before.

  One of the showers finally opened up, and we crowded in together, soaping each other down quickly. Britz then snatched a suit of threadbare livery from a locker and began to put it on hurriedly. I had left the fine clothes from yesterday lying on a bench, but now I found them hanging neatly in a locker. I put them on, but simplified the jacket by ripping off some gold trim. It looked too gaudy for my taste. I was hurrying down the hallway after Britz when Pelch came out of a door and stopped me.

  “Where do you think you’re going, dressed like that?” it demanded.

  “I was going to help Britz,” I said uncertainly.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Pelch said. “I don’t want you learning bad habits from that scamp. You stay down here till I’ve had a chance to teach you how the job ought to be done.” Pelch headed for the kitchen then, and so I followed. It didn’t seem like the time to say that I already knew how the job ought to be done.

  I stood watching, feeling useless, as the kitchen blands prepared breakfast. They worked smoothly together, as if they had practiced this routine a thousand times. Scarcely a word was exchanged. Meanwhile, Pelch was making up the day’s menus and checking the inventories of food, using an electronic scroll. Watching it, I had a hunch no one ever got away with stealing food from these cupboards.

  Britz came flying down the stairs in a panic, saying there was no cream upstairs. One of the kitchen blands silently handed it an earthenware jar of cream, and it started upstairs again. “Britz!” Pelch called out severely. “Use the silver.”

  “Oh, right,” Britz said, backtracking to get a silver creamer. No one said anything, but they were all shaking their heads.

  After the humans had eaten breakfast—there were apparently only the two of them in the house—we sat down around the large wood-block table to eat. The food was good, and plentiful, but the company was silent. Pelch eyed Britz and me critically as we ate, and finally said, “I can tell we’re going to have to increase the food budget, with two voracious children in the house.” Britz nudged me and rolled its eyes in a “don’t pay any attention” signal.

  After breakfast the blands dispersed to their duties. Pelch said, “I suppose I’d better get you doing something useful.”

  The old bland led the way upstairs through the bland-runs. The house was laid out in three levels—public rooms on the top, private human quarters in the middle, and grayspace on the bottom. Because it was built into the cliff, the rooms on the east side had windows. Pelch paused at a graydoor and peered through the hole; finding the coast clear, it led me into a large bedroom that looked out over the gorge. Now that it was day, I could see that the house was placed at a curve of the river, looking upstream toward a vista of waterfalls and rapids framed by black cliffs. The view was dramatic and gloomy to my eyes.

  The bedroom itself was as beautiful as every other human room in the house, decorated sparely with black enamel furniture. The ceiling was an abstract in stained glass, backlit with piped light. At the moment the room was rather disheveled—the bed unmade, clothes and towels strewn about. “You can straighten this up when we’ve finished,” Pelch said.

  Our first stop was a guided tour of the closets. The squire’s taste in clothes was elegant but a little out of date. Every garment was of the highest quality, but some of it was in a shocking state of disrepair and neglect. Pelch explained how the squire liked to match his colors and fabrics. In the midst of the lecture it broke off and said, “You won’t be able to live up to his standards, you know. He is very particular. No bland has ever satisfied him since I was his Personal.”

  Timidly, I said, “When was that?”

  “I’ve been serving him for forty years,” Pelch said proudly. “I was only a little older than you when I became his Personal, and he was in his twenties.”

  “Why did he have a Personal then?” I asked.

  Pelch seemed quite pleased at the chance to tell the story. “He was a prodigy. Do you know what that means? A genius. Geniuses have a way of burning themselves out, so his order gave me to him, to make sure he ate and slept and didn’t have to worry about things.” Pelch’s eyes took on a gleam of reminiscence. “I lived through some wild years at the beginning. He was involved with a group of artists then—they called themselves the Sensualists. They were an unruly bunch, full of passions, but they changed the face of art.

  “But the movement fell apart, or the artists did, and Squire Tellegen moved on to write about ethics and legal reforms. We lived in Magnus for ten years, in the very heart of power. I served meals to all the great mattergraves and electors with these hands, when he was working for reform. They all looked up to him. But then the politics changed, and he was no longer so welcome, so we moved out here.”

  “Why does he run a ranch?” I said. It seemed very peculiar for a great social reformer.

  “Oh, the order had somehow inherited the place, and he wanted the peace and quiet, so they let him live here. The ranching is only a hobby. He’s waiting here, and working. Some day the electors will change their minds about him, and he’ll go back to the world in glory.”

  I could see that this last was a cherished notion of Pelch’s. I had now formed a picture of this oddly un-blandlike bland—resourceful, passionately loyal, resentful of a world that didn’t appreciate its guardian properly. And jealous of youthful upstarts usurping its place. For all its good qualities, Pelch was going to be an obstacle to me.

  We went on into the luxurious bathroom, and Pelch described the squire’s schedule. “He rises very early, but don’t you disturb him then—he likes to meditate and write. At seven he takes coffee. He then dresses for breakfast, and dines with his guests, if any. He spends the rest of the morning in the studium. Lunch is served in the morning room. In the afternoon he takes care of ranch business, and may need you to dress him and bring his gear if he goes out riding. He bathes and shaves just before dinner. Dinner is always formal, even on days when there are no guests. But usually there are. People come from all over the world to visit him. You will treat them all as if they were mattergraves. No giggling or horseplay.”

  The thought was so inconceivable that I said, “They did teach me how to serve humans.”

  “Oh, yes,” Pelch said with disdain. “Brice’s, or some fancy place like that. Well, we have our own standards here.”

  Pelch gave me a long lecture on the squire’s habits and tastes then. I later discovered that nearly all of it was wrong. Perhaps once it had been right, but people change with time, and blands don’t. Pelch still thought of the squire as the young man it had once served.

  “Does the squire ever travel?” I asked.

  Instead of answering, Pelch said indignantly, “Who told you to call him that?”

  “What?” I said, confused. “Everyone calls him squire.”

  “That’s just a nickname, something his friends use. To you, he’s Prosper Tellegen Lexigist. You can call him Lexigist Tellegen.”

  I knew it was ridiculous, but I said, “All right.”

  “He goes to Tapis maybe twice a year, but it’s me he takes with him. He went to Magnus before the current regime came in.”

  I was beginning to think my training would be wasted here, but that was the humans’ business. All I could do was what they told me.

  There was an alcove off the bedroom, hidden by a standing screen. Pelch said, “Don’t you go in there. That’s the squire’s devotional. He is a very spiritual man.”

  Although it spoke with the same pride as always, there was an anxious note in the old bland’s voice. It struck me then that there was a risk for a human who took his religion too seriously. Justification had to be an anxious time not just for the humans but for those who loved them as well. And there was not a doubt in my mind that Pelch loved Squire Tellegen with all its heart.

  Pelch left soon after, and I spent the morning straightening up the bedroom and going through the closets, sorting out t
he clothes that needed attention. At the end, the group of clothes I considered fit to wear was pitifully small. There was a whole collection of shirts with ink stains on the cuffs and sleeves. I took an armload and headed down to the laundry.

  There was a lone bland working in the laundry, tall and lean and moving as slowly as if its veins ran with syrup. We had slept together the night before, but I introduced myself anyway. It looked at me dully, paused a long time, then said its name was Scamper. Obviously, the name was someone’s idea of a joke.

  I showed it the shirts. It looked at them like a sleepwalker, then said, “Those are clean.”

  “They’ve got ink stains,” I said.

  It shrugged. “Machines don’t get ink out.”

  “No, you have to pretreat the stains. Don’t you have any alcohol-based solvents?”

  It looked at me as if I were speaking some alien language.

  “Where’s your supply cabinet?” I asked. It acted like it didn’t understand. I spotted the supply cabinet and asked, “Can I look?” Scamper shrugged and turned away as if the problem were no longer its concern. I finally found the proper solvent in a bottle crusty with age. I sprayed it on a shirt, watched the ink stain dissolve, blotted it away, then took the result to Scamper. “See?” I said. “It works really well.”

  Scamper didn’t react. I left the pile of shirts and the bottle sitting next to them, and went upstairs again. When I came back down to prepare for serving lunch, Pelch cornered me in the hallway and said angrily, “What do you mean by coming down here and passing out orders to the other blands?”

  I was astonished. “I didn’t pass out any orders. I just asked Scamper to clean some shirts. I thought that was its job.”

  “You don’t decide what other blands’ jobs are,” Pelch said severely. “I’m the only one that passes out assignments here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  At Brice’s they had spent months teaching us how to get along with humans, but not a word about getting along with other blands. I was beginning to realize that the latter task could be far more complicated. At least our relationship to the humans was well defined.

  Pelch wouldn’t let me serve lunch. Instead, we stood together in the serving-pantry, watching while Britz served. Pelch gave a running commentary on all the things Britz was doing wrong. The surveillance made Britz very nervous, and it got muddled and clumsy. I couldn’t imagine what the humans were thinking. The climax came when Britz was clearing away plates and let a dirty fork drop so it stuck in the elector’s hair.

  There were four guests coming for dinner. After the debacle at lunch, Pelch decided that I would assist Britz. I was still not considered trustworthy enough to appear before the humans, but Pelch was grudgingly ready to concede I might know how to organize the dishes and brew the coffee.

  “That Pelch makes me crazy,” Britz said to me when we were alone. “It’s always trying to interfere. It’ll never leave me alone.”

  With good reason, I thought silently.

  “Did you get the lecture about the good old days?” Britz said, grinning. Then it launched on a mimicry of Pelch. “Why, forty years ago I served his food and washed his clothes and cleaned his quarters all by myself, with just these two hands. Blands worked in those days.”

  I was still laughing when I said, “Listen, Britz. If Pelch doesn’t horn in at dinner tonight, would you let me serve?”

  Britz’s eyes grew big. “Let you? I’d pay you to do it. I hate serving. They’re always glaring at me.”

  “All right, then.”

  While Britz was dressing the squire for dinner (Pelch didn’t trust me to do that, either), I went into the dining room to check everything out. The table was set all wrong, so I quickly rearranged it. No one had thought to chill the wine or slice lemons for the water, so I hunted up an ice bucket and ran down to the kitchen for the lemons myself. Then I rearranged the serving dishes in the pantry so we could get at them easier.

  Dinner didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted, but compared to lunch, it was elegant. When the humans were seated and I appeared with the wine, Squire Tellegen’s eyebrows rose a hair, but he said nothing. I poured in the proper order, by rank—which I deduced from their clothing, as I had been taught. I then followed with the water and fruit, ghosting around the table so they scarcely noticed my presence. The fact that their conversation never paused showed me that my timing was right. As I poured his coffee after the meal, Squire Tellegen said to me in an undertone, “I see Pelch already has you hard at work.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, my eyes downcast.

  The next morning Pelch had its weekly conference with the squire, and came down bristling. Britz had had the presence of mind to disappear, so Pelch turned on me. “Who gave you permission to serve dinner?”

  “Was there a complaint?” I asked innocently. If Pelch had been a human supervisor, I never would have dared a retort like that; but it wasn’t.

  “I expect you to do what I tell you from now on,” Pelch said.

  “I will,” I said.

  With an ill grace, it said, “The squire wants you to dress him for dinner tonight. And you will serve again.”

  “Yes, Pelch,” I said.

  I had won the first round.

  That afternoon when the squire came to his bedroom for grooming, he seemed very sad and pensive. I had his bath drawn and waiting—hot, the way Britz said he liked it, but lavender-scented the way I liked it. When I offered to undress him he waved me away absently, so I stood by in silence and took his clothes as he dropped them, checking them as I put them into the closet or laundry chute. He went into his bath and I laid out his dinner clothes, the shoes freshly shined and the buttons polished. When I went into the bathroom he looked startled, so I said, “Would you prefer me to wait outside, sir?”

  “No, no, go about your duties,” he said. So I busied myself heating his towels and preparing the shaving tools. When he stepped out of the bath, I was waiting with the heated towel. He said hesitantly, “I took this all for granted once. Now it seems quite decadent.”

  “Hasn’t Britz been serving you properly?” I asked, turning away to mix the shaving lather.

  “Britz is a normal bland,” he said. “It did the minimum it could get away with.”

  I smiled to myself at the implication that I was different.

  I turned around with the razor to indicate I was ready to shave him. He had wrapped the towel self-consciously around his waist, and was looking at me apprehensively. “You’re trained to shave, are you?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, startled that he would think otherwise. With a visible effort, he sat down on the edge of the shaving ledge. “All right,” he said. “Be careful.”

  “Have you been shaving yourself?” I asked, astonished.

  “For ten years or more,” he said, glancing at me with a shadow of amusement.

  “You must be very good at it,” I said, checking his face critically.

  “One does get that way.”

  I motioned him to lie down. “It’s easier for me,” I explained. He did as I told him. At first he was very tense, but as he realized I wasn’t going to slit his throat, he relaxed. When I had finished his face, I draped a hot, scented washcloth over it so his pores would absorb the moisture, and stood looking down at him. He hadn’t had a body shave in a very long time. I knew it was my duty to do it, but what had happened at Brice’s made me reluctant to offer a service so sensual. Making my voice very cool and professional, I said, “Would you like a body shave?”

  He dragged the cloth off his face to look at me. I couldn’t meet his eyes. Gently, he said, “Another day, perhaps.”

  I smiled at him, feeling light as air at the reprieve. “Tomorrow I’ll give you a manicure,” I said decisively.

  I helped dress him—fastening cuffs, pinning on his medals, slipping on his shoes with the tortoiseshell shoehorn. When we were done, I stood back to inspect him. He was terribly elegant, and very handsome in my eyes—
thick gray hair, a high, intellectual forehead, a long, straight nose, and decisive chin. He smiled at me and said, “Do I meet your approval? May I go down now?”

  I had forgotten one thing. I whirled around and snatched up the bluebird feather I had found to decorate his lapel. It was the only modern, stylish touch in his conservative appearance. I tucked it in, then stood back to admire the effect. Very gravely, he laid his hand on his chest and bowed to me, and I broke out laughing. He tousled my hair with a smile, then we parted—he to his guests, me to the dining room to prepare.

  During dinner, one of his female guests commented on the feather he still wore in his lapel.

  “Ah, yes,” he said. “Nasatir tells me it’s very stylish. I can’t take credit for it—it was my new bland’s idea. I can tell this one’s going to spoil me rotten.”

  “Well, it’s about time someone spoiled you,” the woman said warmly.

  As we were cleaning up from dinner, I asked Pelch, “Has he ever had a partner?”

  “Dozens,” Pelch said, glad as always to share its superior knowledge. “When he was young, he had so many admirers he could have his choice. Later, he settled down. For ten years, at Magnus, he lived with a young man who was his protégé. It nearly broke his heart when that one left for a more powerful patron. He’s been alone ever since.”

  I wondered if that accounted for his sadness.

  It also gave me a twinge of anxiety. It occurred to me that perhaps celibacy was one gap in his life that the elector had arranged for a Brice’s bland to fill. I simply couldn’t know—nothing would ever be stated out loud, even if that was the expectation of me. That evening, I had to steel myself to go up to his room to prepare his bed and warm his robe.

  When he came in, he seemed tired and preoccupied. He sat on the edge of the bed and let me take his shoes off, then slowly began to shed the rest of his formal wear. After several minutes of silence he said, “Are you sad, Tedla?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  He sat there looking at me with his cravat half untied. “This afternoon you seemed so gay, it was like hearing a snatch of music I’d almost forgotten. But now you’re very quiet. They’ve made you welcome, haven’t they? Pelch has been good to you?”