on the ground. The arrogance of the harsh, unused voice and the steady gaze of those orange, unblinking eyes made him angry. In times of stress - when he had lost his first van in a drunken bet, when Lianna had finally left him, when Elena threatened to throw him out - Ramon's rage had never deserted him. Now it returned, flushing him with heat and certainty. "What are you, you creatures?" he said. "Where do you come from? From this planet? Somewhere else? What do you think you're doing, attacking me, keeping me here against my will? And what about my van, eh? Who's going to get me a new van?"
Suddenly, the absurdity of the situation struck him. Here he was, in an alien hive, locked away in the middle of a mountain, surrounded by demons. And he was bitching about his van! He had to fight down the urge to laugh, fearing that once he started he would be unable to stop.
The alien was staring at him wordlessly. "If you want to talk, talk sense," Ramon rasped. Anger gave him a sense of power and control that he knew was at odds with the truth. Any small thing that kept his mind his own, however, was precious. "You don't like what I am, you can show me the way out of this shithole."
The great pale alien seemed to take a moment to consider Ramon's words. Its snout lifted as if it was tasting the air. "Those are sounds, not words," the alien said after a long pause. "Discordances outside proper flow. You must not speak in meaningless sounds, or you will be corrected."
Ramon shivered and looked away; his rage had ebbed as quickly as it had flared, and now he felt tired, chilled by the alien's imperturbability. "What do you want from me?" he asked wearily.
"We do not 'want' anything," the alien said. "Again, you speak outside the way of reality. You have a function: therefore, you exist. You will exercise that function because it is your purpose to do so, your tatecreude. No 'wanting' is involved: all is inevitable flow. You are man. You will flow in the pathways in which a man would flow. As he is of you, our path to him will be carved clean. You will fulfill your function."
The creature's voice seemed to be growing clearer as it spoke, as if every word brought it a greater understanding of Ramon's language. He wondered how long he'd have to talk to the thing before it took on a Mexican accent and started cussing. "And if I do not function as you wish?" Ramon asked.
The alien paused, as though briefly puzzled. "You live," it said finally. "Therefore, you exercise your function. Nonfunctioning, you could not exist. To exist and yet not exist - you would be a contradiction, aubre, a disruption in the flow. Aubre cannot be tolerated. To restore balanced flow, it would be necessary to deny the illusion that you exist."
That at least was clear enough, Ramon thought, feeling gooseflesh sweep across his skin. He chose his words carefully when he spoke again. "And what function am I to fulfill?"
The hot orange eyes fixed on him again. "Take care," the alien warned. "That we must interpret your tatecreude for you is a sign that you incline toward aubre. But we will grant you a dispensation, as you are not a proper creature. Listen: a man has escaped from us. Three days ago he fled from us, and we have not been able to find him. By this act, he has shown himself to be aubre, and so proved that he does not exist. The illusion of his existence must therefore be negated. The man must not be allowed to reach a human settlement, to tell other humans about us. Should he do so, that would interfere with our own tatecreude. Such interference is gaesu, prime contradiction. Therefore you will find him, negate him, in order to restore balanced flow."
"How am I supposed to find him if you could not?"
"You are man. You are the same. You will find him."
"He could be anywhere by now!" Ramon protested.
"Where you would go and where he would go - they are the same. You will go where he has gone, and you will find him."
Ramon considered that.
"So you mean there's a man out there who found you and got away, and now you want me to help you catch him before he can get back to