Spherical Harmonic Read Online Free PDF

"Yours are like that."
     
     
I repeated the word. "Green?"
     
     
"Yes. Manq are also tall."
     
     
"I am small."
     
     
He answered grudgingly. "Yes. Your hair, too, is different. In the sun, it looked Manq. But now, what I see, this hair of yours isn't Manq." He indicated the tiny, curled spears of moss clinging to the wall. "Manq hair is like that."
     
     
"Green hair?" Maybe they had altered it to incorporate chlorophyll.
     
     
"No. Black."
     
     
Puzzled, I glanced at the moss he indicated, then at him.
     
     
"Like the water." He brushed his finger through the sheen of moisture on the moss.
     
     
"Manq hair liquid?" Apprehension surged over me, but my mind shied away from any memories his words might have evoked. I didn't want to know.
     
     
"Did the Manq leave you here?" he asked. "Abandon you?"
     
     
Did they? "Know not."
     
     
"Why know you not?"
     
     
"Thinking gone."
     
     
"They think not?" He made a grimace of a smile, as if he found bitter humor in that.
     
     
"Not them," I said. "Me. Bad memory."
     
     
"You have unpleasant memories?"
     
     
"No bad. Gone."
     
     
"You forget?"
     
     
"Yes."
     
     
"Did the Manq do that to you?"
     
     
"Know not."
     
     
"Fables you tell." His hand curled into a fist on his knee. "With the Manq, you live."
     
     
I had no idea where I lived, when I wasn't dispersing into who-knew-where, but I was almost certain no one I knew called themselves Manq. "No. Not Manq. I am Skolian."
     
     
He scowled. " 'Skolia' is many places. Which do you come from?"
     
     
"Know not."
     
     
"I don't believe you."
     
     
I shook my head, too drained for the verbal combat.
     
     
"If you are not Manq," he said, "why are you here?"
     
     
"Know not."
     
     
"Did they leave you to die?"
     
     
Had they? It made more sense than I wanted to admit. "Is possible."
     
     
The treeman considered me, first my face, then the rest. He folded his large hand around my breast and stroked my nipple with his thumb. "You are pretty. You will be the tithe."
     
     
"No touch!" My voice came out clear that time. "You got that? No touch."
     
     
Watching my face, he withdrew his hand. I tried to hide my alarm, but I knew he saw. It didn't gratify him, though. The prospect of force held no excitement for him. I tightened my muscles to keep my arms from trembling.
     
     
"Are you a priestess?" he asked. "This is why no touching?"
     
     
"No priestess. Mathematician." I hadn't recalled that until I said it. But, yes. Like a song with endless variety, its melodies intertwined in exquisite threads, so the equations I solved seemed to me.
     
     
"No mathematics here," he pointed out.
     
     
"Is true."
     
     
"Find you other job."
     
     
"I must go home."
     
     
He brushed a lock of hair out of my face. "No."
     
     
A memory came with ringing clarity: Eldrin stroked a tendril of hair off my cheek. For all that many people found his coloring odd, the mis-matched result of genetic drift in altered populations, he looked handsome to me, his hair the hue of burgundy wine, his metallic gold lashes long and thick, his eyes a vivid purple. A sprinkle of freckles scattered across his nose. His coloring bore little resemblance to our son's, who had my darker hues, but their classic features were the same.
     
     
"No touch." I pulled my head away from the treeman. "Husband I have." The importance of those words went beyond the relationship. Something had happened to Eldrin, a devastating crime. And I couldn't flaming remember. I yanked at my bonds, my eyes burning with tears I refused to shed. Instead I swore.
     
     
"****?" the treeman asked.
     
     
I clenched my fists. "I don't understand you."
     
     
He spoke slowly. "Your husband. Did he leave you to die?"
     
     
"No." I had no doubt about that. Another memory came: Eldrin facing me, pushing me backward. Behind him, armored giants strode toward us down a pillared corridor, nightmare monstrosities of mirrored metal with no