Everything Will Be Explained Tomorrow: 2 / 3

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

---

“I said school starts tomorrow. I didn’t say I was going to be there.”
— Kim Harrison

---

 

In spite of our curiosity, the ten-minute break stretched to twenty minutes. Our common bathroom was large, but not large enough to accommodate all of us at once.

In any case, after the break, we joined Rufus in the cafeteria. I was the first one back, so I quickly asked something I’d been wondering from the start: “Rufus, how is it that your English is so good? You sound like you’re from Earth, not — not some other planet.”

“I’m glad you think so!” he said with a grin. “I’ve been living on earth for the past fifteen years, in a role we call ‘deep study’. I’ve been an Earth boy since the first year of high school. It could have been a lot more fun that it was, but at home, I had to take extra courses about my own planet and culture.” He rolled his eyes. “As you might imagine, it really cut into my extracurricular activities. I never had a girlfriend, never went to dances — never took a girl to the prom. I never learned to drive!” He shrugged. “Oh well. I liked living on Earth, though. I liked it a lot. I learned a lot, even beyond the languages I was tasked with learning.”

I was about to ask some more questions — questions about the sterility toxin, when the rest of my cohort shuffled in.

Rufus sat on a table and looked around to make sure everyone was paying attention. “Okay, so: the question was — did we put something into your lunches yesterday? And the short answer is yes. Yes, we did. We felt it was necessary, and I’m going to explain why. I’m also here to reassure you that we will never do it again.”

“If you’re never going to do it again, you never should have done it in the first place!” Harvey declared. “I mean, you’re only stopping because we caught you, because we realized that you did it.”

“No, you’re wrong there,” Rufus countered. He opened a little box and took out one of the little kelly-green lettuce balls from it. He held it up so we all could see it. He sniffed at it, and placed the ball on top of the box. “It was never our intention to leave you men alone for so long. We hoped that on the very first day we would have been able to explain everything, including this strange little herb. That was the plan.

“Unfortunately, it was far more difficult to reach free space that we anticipated. We told you about The Dumbols, who, we believe, will eventually be our common enemy. We believe that they want to annihilate human life. We’re sure they want to monopolize space travel. They aim to prevent everyone — including the people of Earth — from having access to interplanetary and interstellar flight.

“We’ve already told you that one of their tactics is to destroy spaceships. They believe they’ve knocked out all of ours. Another of their tactics is to create conditions unfavorable to navigation for anyone but themselves. It’s difficult to explain how they’re doing this. In fact, it’s difficult for us to understand many of the things they’ve done. There is no Dumbol presence in your solar system, and yet, even here, even in this part of the universe, navigation, which ought to be mainly automatic, has become fraught with obstacles, and the first part of our journey away from Earth was more complicated than expected. We had to thread our way through what you could think of as a mine field, and at the same time not reveal our presence. Luckily, it was not an entirely manual process, but it was an intense, relentless effort.

“For that reason, you men found yourselves here, alone, abandoned to your own devices. The escape attempt by your James Gang made us realize that your circumstances were rapidly deteriorating. Clearly, you were on the threshold of a crisis. So we toasted some of this herb, ground it up, and added it to your hamburgers and veggie burgers. We also sprinkled some on the hot dogs — I don’t know how well that worked, but we gave it a try.

“Now that we’re in free space, now that we’re talking, we won’t need to do that again.”

“So what’s that herb do? Is it like weed?”

“Weed? You mean marijuana? No. It doesn’t have any properties that directly affect your mood or your, uh, your neurochemistry. It doesn’t alter your thoughts or your… um… anxieties. What it is, is a general rejuvenator. If you were older, like in your fifties or sixties, it would make you feel ten years younger. No — I mean, not feel. Well, of course, you’d feel it, but the effect would be real: it would give you the physiology of a person ten years younger. Or more. Since all of you are already young, it makes you feel like you just got back from a good vacation. Something like that.”

“So it affects your moods.”

“Yes and no. What I mean is, the effect is indirect. The herb improves your overall well-being. Not how you feel, but how you are. If you were sick, for instance, it would help you get better.”

“Do you guys eat it?”

“No, we don’t. It has no effect on homo aliens, if we’re going to call ourselves that. As far as we know, it specifically affects homo sapiens, and no other species. So there is that. We have other reasons for not consuming it as well. For you, the herb is pleasant and tasty. For us, it’s intensely bitter and kind of nauseating. In fact, just thinking about the taste makes me a little ill. Also, it’s difficult and costly to get. In English, it would be called Faraway. We call it that because — as far as we know — it only grows on one planet, and that planet is—” He spread his hands and smiled, waiting for one of us to supply the last word.

“Far away?” Allen ventured.

“Bingo,” Rufus said, and tapped his nose with his forefinger.

We were interrupted by the sound of two loud dings. Rufus looked up, displeased by the interruption. The two dings were repeated.

“That’s for me,” he told us, apologetically. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to cut this short. We can pick up again tomorrow.” He popped the little Faraway ball back in its box and tucked the box under his arm. He gave us all a smile and a wave. He looked at me and winked, and the he left the room.

 

---

 

If it was all stage-managed, it was all done to perfection. The moment Rufus picked up his sample box and turned toward the door, the cafeteria wall opened and our lunch buffet appeared. If it weren’t for that distraction, I would have run with Rufus to the door and slipped in another question or two, but with everyone on their feet and in the way, all I could do was watch the man leave.

Today’s lunch was a variety of sandwiches. There were also pickles, hot peppers, potato salad, green salad, and single-serving bags of potato chips, pop corn, and corn chips. For the first time, there were sodas among the drinks. The layout and selection was greeted with loud, appreciative noises — which very effectively covered the sound of me, calling Rufus’ name.

AND… the little green balls of Faraway were there, next to the green salad. A single silver tray was heaped high with the soft alien vegetable. Harvey took one. Allen did as well. On a 1-2-3 they popped them into their mouths at the same time, and after chewing them up and swallowing, both men went back for more. Exactly three more.

“Why three?” I asked.

Harvey shrugged. “Seems like the right number. I’ve gotta tell you, man. This shit’s the bomb!” Allen nodded enthusiastically.

After that recommendation, the others went, by ones and twos and threes, to try first one, then three more Faraways. Still dubious, I went last, but after eating one, I couldn’t help but eat three more, and that did it. We’d all had four, and now the tray was empty. “I guess four Faraways is one serving,” Harvey observed.

There were no Faraways with dinner or breakfast, but none of us missed them. By lunch time the next day, though, there was a clear general hankering. “You think they’ll have those Faraways again?” Allen asked in a loud voice, to no one in particular. A chorus of “Hope so!” and “Better be!” and “Uh HUH!” came in response.

Once again, the silver tray of Faraways was there, and once again — in spite of the desire and anticipation — each man, myself included, took exactly four of the leafy green balls.

After the Faraways were consumed, we ate our regular lunch. “Hey,” I called out over coffee, “Is anyone worried that we might get addicted to those Faraways?”

“No,” Harvey said. “I can take ‘me or leave ‘em. If you put out a plate of them right now, I wouldn’t touch it.”

Anselm pointed out that no one ate more than four. “Nobody’s asked for more than was given.”

“All things in moderation,” Allen pronounced, and after that platitude — which struck me as idiotic and irrelevant — I let the subject drop.

It wasn’t until that evening that I realized neither Evander nor Rufus had returned to talk with us. When I pointed this out to Harvey, he replied, “They both said they’d be back tomorrow.”

“Yes, but today is tomorrow.”

Harvey considered this for a moment, then said, “Yeah, you’re right.” He gave it a little more thought and quipped, “Well, it’ll be tomorrow then!” and laughing, he gave my shoulder a friendly slap.

The James Gang was back among us — the three men named James — and they were sitting around a table together. They had a conspiratorial look that seemed promising. If anyone had doubts about what was going on, it would have to be them. I saw the middle James gesture at me with his chin, and the other two nodded.

As I got closer, I saw that the leftmost James had a deck of playing cards in each hand. “Hey, Paul,” he said in a soft voice, “You ever play pinochle?”

“Pinochle?” I repeated, confused. I came expecting talk of escape, doubts about our captors’ motives, observations about the weird herb and its highly selective effects. Instead I got pinochle? “What — I — do you mean the card game? No. I’ve never played.”

Their faces fell, clearly disappointed.

“Do you want to learn?” the card-bearing James asked.

“No, sorry,” I said. “I came over to see if you guys were still trying to get out of here.”

“Naw,” their spokesperson said. “There’s no point. Nowhere to go. It is a kind of jail, it’s true. Still, we get three hots and a cot, the promise of plenty of cootch at the end of the rainbow. I was suspicious at first, but now I tend to believe it. I mean — imagine! These guys get neutered, right? And what do they do? They come all the way across the universe. They pick us up, and very politely ask us, please, will you fuck our women? All day long, if it wouldn’t be inconvenient. Now, I call that civilized. What about you?”

The other two Jameses snickered. I frowned.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It just doesn’t add up for me.”

“Hmmph,” the main James replied. “I’d hate to tell someone not to trust their own instincts, but it seems that as dilemmas go, yours isn’t quite there yet. It’s not fully formed.”

“I guess,” I replied, putting my hands in my hair. “I don’t— I just—”

“You know what might help? Learning something new. Turn your focus away from the problem, and when you look at it again, you’ll find more clarity.” He riffled the cards and bounced his eyebrows suggestively.

“Okay,” I conceded, and sat down with a heavy sigh. “Exactly how complicated is this game?”

 

---

 

An entire week went by. An entire week without any sign of Evander or Rufus or any of the crew. Our meals continued to automatically appear. Each lunchtime would feature the little balls of Faraway. Each of us ate four and only four.

I tried to resist. I tried to not take any. I tried to eat just one. I tried to eat just two. I tried to eat just three. But in the end, I found myself popping four in my mouth, one after the other, chewing them up, and swallowing. Then I’d resolve that tomorrow I wouldn’t eat a single Faraway. All I had to do was resist until the lunch buffet was closed. One hour. I could do it. Tomorrow I’d do it, as if somehow tomorrow would be easier.

I was clearly alone in my efforts. As far as I could tell, no one else resisted picking up the little green balls. No one else talked about dependency or our inability to resist the bizarre little treat.

Which made perfect sense: if no one else resisted, they wouldn’t feel the need, the dependency, the addiction.

Admittedly, it was a singular addiction: it only played its siren song once a day, and it took very little to quiet the desire.

 

---

 

A new week started. Eight, nine, ten days of eating Faraway. Soon, it was the fourteenth day. By now, we’d each consumed 56 balls. Then came the fifteenth day, bringing us to a total of 60 Faraways each.

The day after, the sixteenth day, was different. I don’t know how to describe it except to say that when I woke up, I felt truly AWAKE. I was fresh, alert, lively. Sure, I’d been feeling pretty darn good since we started consuming Faraway, but today it was as if I’d been asleep my whole life, and only now opened my eyes.

All the others felt the same, as though scales had fallen from their eyes, or a fog had cleared away. We all shared a new mental and physical clarity that we didn’t have before.

I’ll give you one weird detail as an example: I’d been struggling to learn the rules and strategy of pinochle. The game seemed to have several unrelated sets of rules. I struggled to keep them straight. None of them were more important than the others, but none of them mattered all the time. At least, that was my impression. It was frustrating. The James Gang was very patient, but I was keenly aware of slowing down their game and breaking their momentum. Suddenly now, in a single moment, it came to me, in a startling gestalt : I saw the light, I got it, I grokked the game of pinochle. Now, with no effort whatsoever, I could visualize the entire double deck of cards in my head. Not only that! I was now able to remember all the games we’d played, and see what I could and should have done and why. I’d never been even remotely capable of such a mental feat before.

I was just about to call the Jameses for a game, when Evander and Rufus entered the common room. Rufus passed out name tags and asked us to put them on.

While Rufus did that, Evander made an announcement: “Today we’re entering a new phase in preparing you to live among us. Each of you will be assigned a crew member who will work closely with you to acquaint you with our ways. Hopefully you’ll also learn about our culture, our history, and our language, but you must learn what’s expected of you in social — AND, as you may have imagined — in intimate settings as well.”

This was greeted by appreciative ribald noises, along the lines of Oh-ho-ho!, You know it, boy!, and ooh-la-la! Evander smiled and let the noise take its course. When the men fell quiet again, he continued. “Most of our crew don’t know your language at all. None of us speak it as well as Rufus, but by the same token I should point out that none of you have the smallest acquaintance with our language! However, you are all men of the world — or can we say ‘men of the universe,’ so I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that when a man and woman are naked together, words are often—” he said a foreign word to Rufus, who supplied the English word, “superfluous.”

“Yes, words are superfluous in the heat and passion of those moments. Am I right? In that moment, there is only the act itself.”

There was a general chorus of grunts of assent and coarse laughter among us. But once again I had the uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right. They weren’t exactly lying, but there was something they weren’t telling us. One and one weren’t making two. They were adding up to something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

Evander smiled, and took a moment to look into each of our faces, to be sure we were all paying attention. “This afternoon, between lunch and dinner, the members of our crew will come here in groups of five or six, and walk among you. Please keep your name tags on and plainly visible. Each one of you will be partnered with a member of the crew, and this is the first step toward giving you success in your new roles on our planet.”

He nodded to Rufus, who took the floor and said, “Okay, it’s just a few minutes before lunch. I want to teach you all a phrase in our language. This is your first lesson, so I’ll go easy on you! — It’s just one phrase, four syllables, but it’s perfect for what’s about to happen. This way, when one of our crew speaks to you, you’ll have an appropriate reply. Okay? We’ll have more formal, organized lessons later on, but for now, let’s hear you say this short, little phrase: recar em bo. Do you have it? Let’s hear it a few times. Good! You can practice during lunch. Remember, it’s a useful phrase; a reply when a crew member speaks to you. Okay?”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

At that exact moment, we heard the sound of the lunch buffet sliding into view. The rest of my cohort stood noisily to their feet, and Rufus and Evander were gone.

“Hey, recar em bo, shithead!” Harvey called to me, laughing. “Recar em bo, your grandmother.”

“Go recar em bo yourself, and be quick about it,” Allen joked.

I sighed.

No one seemed to notice that there were no Faraway today. When I mentioned it, I received only shrugs in reply.

“Yeah, I don’t miss it,” Harvey said.

Anselm added, “I lost my taste for it. Honestly, if it were here, I wouldn’t touch it.”

Others expressed similar sentiments. I felt the same way myself.

While we were eating, five crew members, all wearing uniforms similar to the one Rufus wore, entered the room. They wandered around, looking at us, watching us eat. They made comments to each other.

One of them approached Harvey, and pointing to his name tag, said, “Har-WEU. HAH-ruev?”

“Harvey,” he corrected. The crew member nodded and said something else. Harvey smiled and responded, “Recar em bo, cowboy!” The crew member laughed, clapped Harvey on the back, and left.

“I like that guy,” Harvey said. “I hope he’s my tutor or whatever you call it. Seems like a straight shooter.”

I blinked in surprise. From my point of view, Harvey was reading an awful lot of character analysis into a very brief exchange, but I shrugged and didn’t say anything.

Another crew member approached Anselm, and pointing to his name tag, ventured, “Antz lem? Han slim?” Anselm scratched his nose, and blushing, gave the correct pronunciation. As with Harvey, the crew member said some phrase in his own language, to which Anselm replied, “Recar em bo, I’m sure.” The crew member nodded as if this were the correct answer, and he too left. Anselm continued blushing, red as a beet, for a long time afterward, but no one said a word about his reaction.

The process continued throughout the afternoon, following the same pattern in each case.

Since the crew members arrived in groups of five and six, it was easy to tell how far along the assignments were progressing. As we got closer to dinner time, virtually everyone had been paired with an alien. I asked around, and as it turned out, only Allen and I remained to be assigned.

Finally, just fifteen minutes before dinner, Evander arrived. It sounds silly to admit it, but I’d been feeling left out, like the last kid chosen for a team in gym class. I didn’t realize how much tension and stress I was laboring under until Evander entered our space. In that moment, seeing him, especially when he smiled and nodded at me, I relaxed — and wow! The tension drained from my shoulders and neck.

My relief was short-lived. Evander walked directly to me, but it was only to ask where he could find Allen, who, as it happens, was sitting in the cafeteria. They had a brief conversation, ending in Allen’s recar em bo. With that, Evander left. Disappointed, I went to my cell and lay down on my cot. I felt disappointed and neglected, and to make matters worse, I felt stupid and inadequate for feeling disappointed and neglected.

Had I lost all sense of proportion? Here I was, abducted by aliens, knowing I’d never return home, sailing to a more-or-less unknown fate, and my one concern was not having been chosen by a tutor? What kind of idiot was I? Was I always this weak and silly, or did my time in confinement change me? I let out a deep sigh of disappointment.

Six or seven minutes passed, but it seemed far longer. I lay on my back with my hand over my eyes. Part of me felt sorry for myself. Another part was angry at my self-pity. A third part was disgusted with my weakness. What had become of me? What would become of me?

A gentle knocking brought me out of my funk. It was Rufus, rapping his knuckles on the doorframe. I moved to get up, but he quickly said, “Don’t get up, it’s fine. Stay there.” He came to my bedside and asked, “Do you mind if I sit?”

“Of course,” I stammered, and shifted over a little to make room. He perched on the edge of my bed and looked down at me, smiling a warm smile.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but Evander and I had some urgent duties.” He said. His eyes flitted to my name tag, and he said my name: “Paul.” I wondered in that moment whether I’d ever heard him say the word before. I blinked and looked up at him. After a slight pause, he looked in my eyes and said a phrase in his own language. Then he waited for me to respond.

I lay there, looking up at him, wondering what on Earth was going on.

Looking a little disappointed, and maybe a bit bemused, he asked in a gentle voice, “Did you forget your first language lesson, Paul?” and he repeated the foreign phrase.

“Um, recar em bo, I guess.” I responded, and he grinned. I found myself blushing for no reason.

“Exactly!” he softly exclaimed. “Well done!”

“So... what did we just say to each other?” I asked.

“Mmm,” he replied nodding. “It’s a formal uh — you could say a ritual exchange. We’ll start with organized language lessons tomorrow, and you’ll see — the more you learn, the more you’ll understand.”

Clearly, he wasn’t going to tell me — at least not today. So I asked a different question. “Rufus, what’s happening to me — to us?”

“Do you mean us you and me, or us you guys from Earth.”

I shook my head. “Either. Both.” As he opened his mouth to answer, I preempted: “And don’t tell me that you’ll explain everything tomorrow. Just tell me now.”

He laughed, gently and lightly. Then I heard Allen call from the cafeteria that dinner had arrived. Rufus glanced at me. “Do you want to go, or—”

“No, I want an answer,” I said. “The food can wait. Or I can skip it. I want to understand.”

“Okay,” Rufus agreed. “There are two things you need to know: one is about the Faraway herb, and the other is a misunderstanding. I’m not sure which one to explain first.” He thought for a moment, then spoke.

“Faraway is a very potent herb. As you know, it has no effect on my species. In fact, as far as we know, it only affects *your* species, the homo sapiens. It introduces strong changes in a person’s physiology. For example, if one of you was suffering from a devastating disease, say the worst form of cancer, with extensive metastasis, organ failure — the worst possible picture — Faraway would restore that person to perfect health and take years off their life as well. It’s powerful and dramatic.”

“Faraway is a cure-all then?”

“Yes and no. We’ve studied the effects of Faraway on homo sapiens pretty extensively — for generations, actually. One of its most interesting characteristics is that you can only take it once in your life. So, if it cured you of one serious illness, and you contracted a second, you’d be out of luck.”

“No, that’s not true!” I objected. “I took it — we all took it — over and over again, for fifteen days!”

“Right,” Rufus agreed. “That was your one time. If you left any person from Earth alone with an unlimited amount of Faraway, they would only ever eat four balls a day for fifteen successive days. If they don’t get the full dose for some reason, they don’t get the full effect, but after that initial fifteen-day window closes, they’ll never touch the stuff again. If they’re forced to, they just throw up. They can’t keep it down.”

“Weird,” I commented. “But why did you give it to us? Why didn’t you save it, in case we got desperately ill?”

“Well… that’s the interesting part. When a healthy person takes Faraway, it has a quite different effect, and the particular effect depends on your gender. If a healthy woman or girl were to take Faraway, it would bring her to peak condition, to the highest state of health and well being.”

“And for a man? It must be a similar effect.”

“Well, yes and no,” Rufus replied, his eyes twinkling. “Hey, are you sure you don’t want to join your friends for dinner? We can pick this up again tomorrow.”

“No,” I insisted. “No ‘tomorrow’. I want to understand now.”

“Okay,” he agreed, nodding. “You’d eventually find out on your own anyway.

“I mentioned there was a misunderstanding. It’s important for me to state that we didn’t intentionally deceive you. That wasn’t our initial plan. However, we didn’t do anything to prevent you from deceiving yourselves. You see, we told you that we needed you to breed, and you all assumed — quite naturally, I suppose — that we needed you to impregnate our women. You assumed that we *men* had become sterile, impotent. The truth was the exact opposite: the Dumbols made our women infertile, and that was a decisive blow. If we men were the problem, it would have been possible to use our sperm banks or cloning. We could have impregnated our women artificially, and hopefully our next generation would be potent again.”

I struggled to understand. “But — if — no — I — I don’t understand. It makes no sense. We’re not women. We can’t bear children, unless you have some freaky way to make that happen!” Frustrated, confused, I moved to get up, but Rufus put his hand on my chest and made a shhh sound, with his finger to his lips.

The dots began to connect in my mind. “So… the Faraway herb… you can’t be serious. Do you believe the herb turns healthy men into women? That’s ridiculous! It’s impossible! This mission of yours is a failure! You’re wasting your time! Do you understand?”

“No,” he said. “The change has already begun. It’s evident to us, and soon it will be evident to you. We’ve studied this herb extensively, and we’re well aware of what it can do.”

“But it isn’t physically possible!” I shouted.

“Please keep your voice down,” he said in a quiet tone. “Think about it this way: I know that I’m right. You believe that I’m wrong. If you’re correct, and I’m mistaken, what will happen?”

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Okay,” he said. “If you’re convinced about that, you have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if I’m correct, after about thirty days, you’ll be a fully functioning female. It won’t be a matter of belief. It will be a physical fact.”

“This is insane!” I protested. “If you needed women, why didn’t you just abduct women? They’re already what you need!”

“This was a topic of great discussion,” Rufus replied. “Basically, there were two considerations. On Earth, you have an excess of males. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but out of around 7.6 billion people, there are almost 66 million more men than women. The excess men amount to less than one percent of your total population.”

My mouth fell open in horror. “Are you going to abduct them all?”

“No,” Rufus said. He appeared taken aback by the question. “We need to stay under the radar, on your world, on my world, and in the eyes of the Dumbols. Eventually we expect to take about a half million men from Earth.”

“And turn them all into women?”

“Exactly.”

I swore in outraged disbelief.

Rufus continued. “I said there were two considerations. The first I’ve just explained: if we take only a small portion of the excess, it will go unnoticed.

“The second consideration is that Faraway has a second effect on healthy Earthmen. It not only turns you into women, it turns you into highly fertile women, women who can safely sustain multiple births, AND women with the biological need to reproduce.”

“The biological need?” I repeated

“Yes,” he said. “Need. You will *want* to have a baby. It will be a strong physical desire.”

“No, never.”

“Believe me. I don’t want to frighten you, but in a month’s time, you’ll begin wishing you had a baby inside you.”

I scoffed and shook my head. “None of this makes sense. How does this herb know which thing it’s supposed to do? What if it gets it wrong? Why doesn’t it turn women into men? Is being a man supposed to be an illness?”

“Obviously not,” he replied. “But it’s not as though the herb knows anything. It can’t decide anything. It’s just an herb. It reacts to each person’s physiology.”

“And every man — every Earthman — turns into a baby-making sex slave?”

“No, not at all! None of you will be slaves. You’ll each be independent individuals, just as you are now. Your mind, your will — they’ll still be intact. You’ll make your own decisions. At the same time, you’ll find you have inclinations and needs, just like you do now. Some will be the same, and others will be new. The fact that you have to eat three times a day — that doesn’t make you a slave, does it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Honestly, this business about a magical herb… it’s crazy. It makes zero sense. It sounds like you’ve made it all up. And you know what else? It’s all too convenient.”

“Convenient?”

“Yes! It’s as if this herb was tailor-made for the survival of your species. You have a problem, and boom! You have the solution.”

“We’ve known about the Faraway herb for quite some time,” he told me. “Long before the Dumbols appeared. And believe me, gathering the herb is far from convenient.”

“Still — it’s perfect for this crisis. Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”

He frowned. “Suspicious of what?”

“It sounds too good to be true — I mean, from your point of view! When something’s too good to be true, it usually isn’t — true.”

The two of us fell into silence for a few moments. Then Rufus glanced at the clock and reminded me that dinner was still available.

“No, thanks,” I replied. “I think I’ve lost my appetite. Maybe for good.”

“Okay,” he acknowledged, sounding a bit disappointed.

“What’s next?” I asked. “We wait for a month while I gradually turn into a cow?”

“A cow?” he repeated. His lips twitched as he suppressed a smile. “I can’t picture you as a cow! No way! I expect you to turn into a little bunny! Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t that be cute? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

I tried to be angry, to find some heated retort to throw back at him, but I found myself laughing in spite of myself. At the same time, I was surprised to find stray tears on my cheeks.

“It will be fine,” he said. “You’ll see.” Then he said a phrase in his language. I took a deep breath and responded “Recar em bo, Rufus. Whatever that means.”