[Kelvin 03] - Chimaera's Copper (with Robert E. Margroff) by Piers Anthony

as Kelvin felt.

    "Uniqueness. In all the frames we know of, this is the last of the chimaera's kind. Should it be destroyed, the victim of genocide, to satisfy an alien's greed?"

    "No. No it shouldn't, but--"

    "You think of your fellow prisoner and his claim to be from a Major world. Major and Minor are in the eyes of the beholder, as your people say. It was no love of knowledge that brought them here."

    "But you did let them be slaughtered, eaten by the chimaera?"

    "Of course."

    Kelvin looked at his father and brother, and wondered. Were they as appalled by this as he was?

    "Your property was also rescued," Bloorg said. He gestured with squared-off fingers. Other squarears stepped forward carrying the levitation belt, the Mouvar weapon, the gauntlets, and the swords.

    "So we really are free, then?" Kian asked, seeming hardly to believe it.

    "Yes. Go now to your wedding."

    Something was not right. Kelvin almost knew, but could not quite pin it down. He buckled on his sword, the Mouvar weapon, and drew on the gauntlets.

    "Well I for one am ready to go!" Kian said. "I've had enough of chimaera and poacher. I'm ready to go any time."

    Kelvin looked at his father. John was frowning, maybe disturbed about the same thing that was bothering Kelvin. They had after all been confined in the same place. Driven by hunger, they had eaten from the trough Stapular must have eaten from. Kelvin had felt like a piog, gulping slops, but the stuff had been amazingly tasty.

    "Do not waste your sympathies on the hunter," Bloorg said. "He is not quite as he seems, and he knew what he risked."

    But dipped in lye? Cooked alive? Pickled? Eaten? It seemed all too much. Even the sorcerer Zatanas and the witch Melbah had received kinder fates, and they, more than gruff Stapular, had seemed to be of a different species.

    "I repeat, your sympathies are wasted," Bloorg said. "Once you have considered the enormity of what they planned, you will agree that their fate was deserved."

    Sympathy then for the chimaera? A creature that mocked them from a feminine face? A monster that munched human limbs with enjoyment? Was that where his sympathy should lie?

    "No," Bloorg answered patiently. "You should not feel sympathy for either. They are what they are, and nothing you or we could do would make any difference."

    Evil beings deserving nothing more? But Stapular had seemed human. Not likable, certainly, but human. And advanced.

    "Advanced by what cosmic standard?"

    Yes. Yes, that made sense. A person might think himself advanced, but that was as likely to be vanity as fact. Greed was after all greed, and cruelty was cruelty. But could a monster be said to be cruel? Wasn't its taunting ways simply part of its nature?

    "You are remarkably philosophical for one so recently rescued." The squarear was looking at him from blocky pupils in blocky eyes set in a blocky head. Looking, seemingly, into the roundeared, roundeyed, roundheaded depths of him.

    "It's my nature," Kelvin said. "I have to question."

    "Of course you do."

    Kian looked toward the cave. "Any time you're ready, Kelvin, Father."

    "All right." John Knight stood. He held out his hand to Bloorg. "In my frame it is the custom to clasp the hand of someone who has saved your life, and say thanks."

    "You are most welcome," Bloorg said. They shook, John wincing as he felt the other's hand.

    Kian was already on his feet, extending his hand similarly. Kelvin, uneasy for no reason he could quite define, followed their example. When he took Bloorg's six-fingered hand he knew why his father and his brother had acted surprised. It was chilly, like a froogear extremity, but dry rather than clammy. The fingers wrapped around his wrist, showing that they were many-jointed, like little tails. The alien feel of the appendage drove all other thoughts away.

    "Come," John said, and Kelvin followed with Kian. It was farther than it had appeared to be, and it seemed to get no closer as they walked. Then