The Lord of Opium(50)

“Okay,” Matt said warily. The shift of personality had caught him off guard. “Do you like cookies?”

“You bet,” said the Bug. “I like milk, too. And strawberries and cheese. It was nice of you to invite me to lunch.”

“Help yourself,” said Matt, and was surprised by the boy’s elegant table manners. He’d expected Mbongeni’s type of chaos, but of course the Bug had normal intelligence. Better than normal. “What do you do all day?” he asked.

“What do I do?” El Bicho’s gaze was far away as he tried to remember. “Sometimes Dr. Rivas teaches me things, and sometimes we go for walks. I watch TV a lot.”

“Where do you walk?”

“Here and there,” the boy said vaguely. “I like going to the observatory. Dr. Rivas’s children are astronomers—well, two of them are. The oldest son is a crot—sorry—an eejit. Sometimes they let me look through the telescope.”

It sounded like a normal outing except for the leashes and hobbles. Did the boy wear them most of the time? “Do you like Dr. Rivas?”

“Of course. He’s like a father. Or what I think a father is. Like you, I don’t know much about families.”

For some reason Matt felt like there was a pane of glass between himself and the Bug. What the boy said was reasonable, but it was just words, with no connection to the person behind them. The Bug was saying what he thought Matt wanted to hear.

“El Patrón’s father lived a hundred fifty years ago,” said Matt. “In a way he was our father too. We had a family back then, but they died long before we existed. It’s so strange. Sometimes I feel like an old photograph hidden away at the back of a drawer. Did you ever meet El Patrón?”

El Bicho shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“I knew him well. He talked a lot about his brothers and sisters, and it bothered him that they’d never had a chance. That fountain outside the lab is supposed to be statues of them.”

“Are they our brothers and sisters?” said the Bug.

Matt shied away from the idea. “Not really. The statues were copied from Illegal children. There weren’t any pictures of the originals. People like us have to make our families.”

“So that means you’re my brother,” said El Bicho.

“I suppose,” Matt said unwillingly. He considered for a moment. “I think that people have an instinct for a family. You look until you find a mother, a father, a sister, a brother. They don’t have to be blood relatives. They just have to love you. And when you find them, you don’t have to look anymore.”

They ate in silence for a while. Matt had no appetite and passed much of his food on to Mirasol. He thought about Celia and Tam Lin, and about Fidelito, who had called him brother. Was María his sister? No, she was something more. He kept looking at the Bug’s hobbles and wondering whether he dared to remove them. “If I took off your leg restraints,” Matt said carefully, “do you promise not to throw a fit?”

“Sure,” said El Bicho.

“We could go for a walk.”

“I can show you the way to the observatory,” said the boy, showing genuine interest for the first time. “It’s great! There’re all kinds of machines and computers. The smaller telescope looks at the sun, and the big one looks at the rest of the sky.”

The Bug’s enthusiasm transformed his face, and Matt thought, What kind of childhood has he had, shut up in a nursery with eejits for company? No wonder he isn’t normal. But that could be changed. He ordered the eejits to unlock the hobbles.

“Remember. No tantrums,” Matt warned as they went into the gardens, but he needn’t have worried. El Bicho danced around from the joy of being outside before settling down to a steady pace. The eejits followed solemnly, holding their leashes.

To Matt’s surprise they went to a hovercraft port concealed behind a hedge. There were a dozen or so small craft parked on magnetic strips, and the Bug went up to one and opened the hatch. “It’s a long way to the observatory,” he explained.

“I’ll get Cienfuegos to pilot,” said Matt.

The Bug laughed. “Anybody can fly these,” he said, climbing inside. The eejits followed him, pressing themselves against the back wall. “You need a pilot to take up a real hovercraft. This is a stirabout for short hops.” He patted the seat next to him.

Matt climbed in, hoping that he wasn’t making a mistake. The change in El Bicho had been so gratifying, he didn’t want to spoil the boy’s mood.

“First, you uncouple the magnets,” explained the Bug. He pushed a green button. The stirabout lurched up, and Matt caught his breath. “It’s okay. We can’t go more than ten feet off the ground,” said the Bug. “Now you press the go button and steer with this wheel. I’ll let you try it on the way back.”