Almost Inhuman

Noel stepped out of the spaceport shuttle and extended his hand. "Hi there, I'm Noel Collins. I understand you've got a wild woman you want me to study."

"Mr. Collins, I'm Raul Enriquez. Good to meet you. On behalf of the City, welcome to Hyperion! Yes, we've got a feral human we found out there." Enriquez gestured out away from the domes of the City, out into the wilderness. "She's such a puzzle, we were driven to call you out here, all the way from Earth. I trust you had a not unpleasant journey."

Noel gave a wry smile. "Traveling through a hypertube is never pleasant. But they had us well sedated. I survived the trip." He sat down at a table with the representative of the City. "Nice fresh breeze out here. Feels like springtime in San Francisco."

"Today," said Enriquez. "But this time next week, you couldn't be out here in the open without a protective suit. Hyperion's primary" -- Enriquez pointed at the orange sun up in the sky -- "is a variable star. Flares up periodically. The native life forms have evolved ways of coping. As for us... well, without a suit, without being shielded beneath the domes of the City, you wouldn't last out the morning."

"Then how did your feral woman survive out there in the wilds? I assume she'd been living out there for years."

"A good twenty years, we estimate. She must be in her early to mid twenties now, and she must have been living out there most of her life. Since she was very young. But she lived with a troop of mendralees."

"Mendralees?"

"One of the native life forms. They nest in burrows underground. And they raised her as one of their own. I mean, physically, genetically, she's a human female. But behaviorally... she's almost inhuman. Much more mendralee than human."

"Almost inhuman?" Noel stroked his chin.

"Come on." Enriquez got up out of his chair. "I'll take you to see her..."

Into the City, into the hospital, where the feral woman was being kept in a padded cell. Noel Collins looked in through a thick glass window at her. She was lying there asleep on the floor, to all appearances an attractive young woman. Matted tangled auburn hair. A pretty face, wide set eyes, prominent cheekbones, flaring nostrils. An attractive young woman, and there she lay, stark naked. Just as they had found her -- naked.

Noel also noticed the woman's hands, her large smooth beautiful hands. Her hands looked unusually big and strong. And her fingernails were grown out long, like talons.

"So that's your wild woman," said Noel.

"Yes," said Enriquez. "She calls herself Camill. Only has a couple dozen words of human language. She must've been very young when the mendralees found her. And in effect made her one of them."

"The mendralees are intelligent?"

"Ummmmm... tough question. A lone mendralee compares with some species of monkeys. But together as a group... a troop of mendralees is... almost a collective intelligence, there's an extremely rich behavioral repertoire that arises among them, far richer really than the forms of human behavior or culture. We don't really understand them yet. That is what Camill was assimilated into for most of her life. That is what we want you to study in her."

"Well, then I'd better get started," said Noel as he stripped off his shirt, stripped off his pants, dropped them on the floor, stripped himself stark naked. "I'm sorry, Mr. Enriquez, surely they told you? This is how I study my subjects. Mine is the special enhanced ability to go native."

Noel stepped into the padded cell. He heard the door click shut and lock behind him. The woman was awakened by the sound. Immediately she rose into a crouch, looked warily at Noel, and snarled at him like an animal.

Noel was careful not to face directly toward her, not to look straight into her eyes. He was trying to avoid any actions Camill might take as aggressive. Hard to tell, though: her body language was thoroughly alien, the move and pose and flow of a cautious wild animal.

Slowly, oh so slowly, Noel dropped to his haunches. Now they were both crouching, nude, Camill faced toward Noel, and Noel turned to one side. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Those hands, those long sharp nails... Noel knew how to protect himself without hurting her, he hoped! But she could inflict serious injury with those claws. He glanced sideways into her eyes, and in them he saw nothing human.

She looked like a beautiful naked young woman. But the way she carried herself, the look in her eyes... like a wild animal! A very alien wild animal!

Noel slowed his breathing. He directed his pulse rate to slow down. He modulated his brainwaves, until he could feel the calm spreading out from his chest and through his limbs. Certain enhancements gave him a yogi-like control over his body.

And then he sat there, crouching, relaxed, waiting. For half an hour he waited. Bit by bit he sensed the tension draining out of Camill. After a while she began to edge toward him, slowly, slowly, drawn by curiosity.

When she came within arm's length, he gradually turned a little more in her direction, his palms open and facing up toward her. He allowed himself to glance toward her, still careful not to stare in her eyes. She was calm now, loose, fluid.

Camill reached out and brushed her long nails gently against Noel's shoulder. Scratching, but gentle! As if she was grooming him, softly picking something off his shoulder. To show he trusted her, Noel slowly turned back away from her, until his back was turned toward her. She kept on picking, scratching at his shoulder with the long sharp nails of her right hand.

Then something truly alien: Camill's left hand reached around from behind Noel's head, reached around from behind -- he glanced down, he could see her palm, the underside of her fingers, her long translucent nails jutting out from her fingertips -- she reached around from behind him, and in a single fluid motion Camill closed her hand firmly over Noel's mouth.

All of a sudden Noel found Camill's big long smooth hand clamped very firmly in place over his mouth. Her big soft warm surprisingly strong hand! Clamped tight over his mouth! The musky sweaty odor of her unwashed hand filled his nostrils. Her sharp downcurling nails pricked into his cheek. His mouth and jaw and cheeks were compressed within the tight unyielding powerful grip of her hand.

Led by his enhanced intuition, Noel went, "Mmmmmmmmmmhh! Mmmmm hmmmm mmmmmmm, mmmmmmm hhhmmmmmm! Mmmmmmm ghhhhmmmm wwwmmmm, mmmmmmh! Mmmmh mmmmmm! Mmmmmmmmmmhh! Mmmmmmmhhhh!!! Hhmmmmmm, mmmm wwmmmm MMMMMMMMHH!"

Sure enough, it seemed to be just what Camill wanted and expected out of him. She kept her left hand fastened in a strong grip over his mouth, while with her right hand she picked and gently scratched at his back in grooming behavior.

Noel could feel the young woman's body heat radiating against his naked back. She was very close behind him. Up between his eyes, almost too close to focus, he could see her long-clawed thumb up along the side of his nose. He worked and stretched his jaw beneath her tight handgrip, but she was holding his mouth too tight -- he couldn't open his mouth! "Mmmmmmmmhh, mmmm hmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmm!"

On another gut intuition, he turned his head back and forth, from side to side. She let him turn his head, but she kept her hand locked in place over his mouth. By now Noel was doubting whether he'd be able to get away from her, even if he tried. But he didn't want to try. This was some alien mendralee way of relating. He could feel, Camill was pleased with how he was reacting to her overtures, to her warm soft strong musky hand locked over his mouth.

Noel kept making soft muffled grunting and groaning noises from beneath her unrelenting silencing hand. "Mmmmmmmmh, mmmm hhmmmmmm.... mmmmm hhmmmm mmmmmmmmhh.... Mmmmmmmmhh!" He could tell she liked it. Already, on a level beneath his conscious awareness, Noel was taking in and processing subtle sensory cues, learning to read her feelings and her motions and her body language and her reactions. Learning to read her, and at a deep subconscious level within his mind integrating what he was learning from her. "Mmmmmmmmmhhh! Mmmmmmmhh!"

Already Noel could begin to feel his way toward making just exactly the kind of muffled noises she liked. And he was getting better at it by the minute. Subtle enhancements of his neural structure, nanotech, wetware: Noel could learn, on a deep somatic and behavioral level, in ways quite beyond the capability of an unmodified human. Set him down in the midst of a human tribe he'd never met, and within days he'd be fluent in their language, steeped in their customs and culture and folkways as if he'd lived there all his life.

This is what Noel was doing, mmmmphing and letting Camill groom him with one hand while she held her other hand firmly over his mouth. He was learning her inside and out. Learning her on a deep dark primeval level. Learning this beautiful naked young woman who in all her ways was almost inhuman.

"Mmmmmmmmh hhmmmmm mmmmmmm, mmmmmmmhhh..... Mmmmmmmmmhhhh..." Camill groomed him and held his mouth until her large smooth warm musky hand grew all wet and sweaty. She must have been holding his mouth for almost an hour! Then she shifted, took her left hand away from his mouth, wiped the sweat off her hand onto his chest, scratching his chest not so gently with her long clawlike fingernails.

Camill pressed up against Noel from behind, her warm breasts pressing against his back, her naked body pressing warm and firm against his. She wrapped her left arm around his chest and upper arms so that she had his arms pinned down. Then she pulled him over onto his right side. And then she wrapped her legs around his legs, so that she had his legs pinned and immobilized inside hers.

And then, when she had him all pinned down and immobilized in her embrace, snuggled up against him warm and nude from behind like a nestling wild animal, she reached around and clamped her right hand over his mouth.

"Mmmmmmmmhhh hhmmmmmm mmmmmm mmmmmmmmmhh!!!" Noel twisted and squirmed his entire body in her tight warm cuddly restraining embrace. He twisted and turned his head, making noises from beneath her big smooth soft warm beautiful steel-spring hand clamped tight over his mouth. "MMMMMMMHHH!!" Noel could sense how much closer the bond between him and Camill was becoming. Now she had him completely enwrapped and trapped in the strong tangle of her arms and legs, her right palm tightsqueezed hard over his imprisoned lips. She had him wrapped up in something not unlike a tight restraining wrestling hold, her naked body up warm against his, and she wasn't going to let him go. Nor was she going to take her big warm soft womanly hand away from his mouth, no, she was going to keep his mouth gripped hard in her hand no matter how he squirmed and writhed and made muffled meaningless noises with her hand over his mouth.

Noel lay there on the floor in the padded cell with Camill's body wrapped around his so that he could hardly even move, unable to speak with her hand kept clamped over his mouth. He lay there like that, all snuggled up against her, bare skin to bare skin, immobilized inside her unrelenting arms and legs for hours. She wouldn't let him go, and he doubted he could break free of her even if he tried.

Meal time came and went: a young nurse came and looked into the room through the thick glass window at Noel and Camill lying there tangled up together on the floor, Camill's hand locked over Noel's mouth. She looked in at them, and then she turned to wheel the meal cart away. Noel noticed on the nurse's face a professional but somewhat concerned expression, like What is that creature doing holding him all locked up in her arms and legs like that, and they're both naked, and he can't even say anything?!

Noel lay there with Camill pressed up against his body from behind, with her arms and legs wrapped around him tight like a living female beartrap, with her big warm powerful smooth sweaty unwashed claw-nailed feminine hand locked tight like a gag over his mouth. He lay there, taking in her every action and movement, learning, processing it all within him on a deep level far beyond the reach of conscious rational thought. He lay there until Camill drifted off to sleep, and then Noel was getting groggy.

Even in sleep, Camill kept her hand squeezed over his mouth like a tight steel spring.

When Noel awoke the next morning, Camill's warm naked body was still cuddled up against him. But his mouth was free. He glanced down at her snarled matted auburn hair, her sweet angelic sleeping face. His nose took in her musky odor, not unpleasant, but like the smell of a locker room. Overnight he had knit connections together in the depths of his mind, and now in the early morning he found he could read an indefinable something in the lineaments of her sleeping repose. A sense, a feeling, a distant wisp of Camill and what and who she was.

Camill's eyes opened. She regarded him with her beautiful wide set hazel eyes, and they were like glass animal eyes, nothing human at all in the look of her gaze. Like an animal she looked at him. Then Camill muttered, "Dolly... dolly...", as she pressed up against him and wrapped him up in her arms and legs.

"Yes, Camill... dolly..." It must be one of the few human words she retained, from earliest childhood... anything she cuddled and clung to was her dolly. "Camill, dolly--mmmmmph!" The feral woman cut Noel off with her large long warm soft unwashed hand suddenly clamped hard over his mouth. "Mmmmmmmh, mmmmm hmmmmmmm mmmm hhmmmmmmh!!" So it was back to the mouth holding... Camill kept on holding Noel's mouth until the door unlocked and a nurse cautiously brought in breakfast for them.

Camill let Noel go while she crouched on her haunches and ate breakfast. She ate with her hands, she ate like an animal. She wolfed her food down. Bits of food fell out of the corner of her mouth onto the floor, unheeded. She bent over and lapped water up out of a bowl with her tongue. Noel imitated her way of eating as best he could. He ate his breakfast quickly: he didn't know how soon she might finish, and clamp her hand back over his mouth.

After breakfast Camill squatted over a bucket. She urinated and defecated into it. Noel used the bucket too. A nurse came in and took the bucket, also cleaning up a turd off the floor, where Camill must have left it during the night.

The door closed and locked again. Now Camill looked at Noel with a wild hungry eager look in her eyes, a look that was quite inhuman. With a wide idiot grin she leaped on him, pinned him to the floor, wrapped him up tight in her four-limbed embrace, and plastered her big soft clawed womanly hand over his mouth and nose. "Mmmmmmmhh, mmmmmm hmmmm mmmmm mmmm hhmmmmm, MMMMMMHH!!" Noel writhed and twisted in her unbreakable embrace. He made wild gargling gnarling noises. He struggled to breathe from beneath her soft warm tight hand. "Mmmmmmmmmmmhh!! Hhhhhhhhh... Ppphhhhhh!" She didn't want to let him go. He was her dolly.

The day passed with Camill holding Noel like this most of the time. Sometimes she held him with her hand over his mouth for hours. Then she might let him go for a little while. But soon she was back to holding him. One time she held him with her left hand gripped tight over his mouth, while her right hand picked and brushed through his hair as if searching his scalp for lice.

And Noel was assimilating more and more from Camill's behavior. He could read her mood. He could even read, in her wide set hazel glass animal eyes, some glimmer of her meaning, fugitive bars from some distant alien sonata. He only misread her badly once, when he made as if to take her in his arms, and she tensed and bared her teeth and snarled at him sharply like some savage wild dangerous tigress.

Noel began to get it: Camill expected to be in control, Camill expected to be dominant with him. Noel's place was to submit, let her hold and cuddle him against her nude body, and let her keep her hand fastened tightly over his mouth.

And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. When Noel woke up the third day he found he had morning wood. His stiff member was pressed against Camill's naked thigh. When she awoke she seemed not to notice it at first. She was, after all, almost inhuman. But then she gradually grew excited with Noel, taking him in her arms, holding him, raking and clawing his back. They ended up having sex on the floor of the padded cell. It was like no other sex Noel had ever experienced. There was nothing human about it, about Camill's reactions or responses. She didn't moan or cry out, she snarled and spat and barked. She scratched and clawed Noel's back with wild abandon. She had grown up apart from humans, she was a mendralee in her ways. It was like having sex with a wild animal! Afterwards, with Noel's back clawed into a bloody mess, Camill demurely snuggled up against him and clamped her smooth beautiful hand, bloody claws and all, tightly over his mouth.

And Noel took it all in, processing it as an unmodified human never could, delving deeper and deeper into the alien heart and soul of Camill.

By the fifth day Noel was making progress into the deeper behavioral repertoire of the mendralee. Accessing it with his conscious mind was like being on a trip, like drifting into some altered state of consciousness. He couldn't put it in words, not even when Camill wasn't holding his mouth. But increasingly he knew.

By now Camill knew the name of her dolly, Noel. And by now Noel was seeing impossible meanings, like color sidebars, in the cant of her leg, the thrust of her elbow, the saucy jut of her small firm breasts. There were differences, not just subtle, but differences intricate and rich, in the ways she held his mouth, the tightness of the squeeze of her palm over his lips, the varying cordlike tension of her tight gripping fingers, a long nail dug into his cheek, a slender thumb up alongside his nose or draped across the bridge of his nose. Even when Noel mmmmphed and couldn't speak, Camill knew. And more and more, Noel was sensing in blooming unfurling detail the glory of just what she knew.

On the seventh day an even deeper level opened up to Noel, in the space of two hours that afternoon. Camill was holding Noel imprisoned tight in her four-limbed arm-and-leg embrace, her big smooth warm silky musky hand squeezed hard over his mouth. Noel was jerking and writhing in her unbreakable trap-tight embrace, going "Mmmmmmmhh, mmmmm hmmmm MMMMMMMHH!!" And in that brightlit amber afternoon it was opened to him. He broke the code; or rather, it broke itself and was unveiled before him. From about half past two until about half past four, fire! Now in Camill's every limb, in the glint of her eye, in the auburn tangle of her hair, in the scratch of her nails, in the womanly scent of her soft neck, in the chamois smooth back of her hand which eclipsed his mouth, there broke through a torrent of something beyond words, something beyond language, a meaning beyond meaning, deeper and stronger and more fine-woven than any human language, not structured by any grammar or syntactics, but structured with a living and utterly alien architecture of its own, fire! and ice!, and what it conveyed was beyond all human ken, beyond anything Noel had ever known or felt or dreamed until now.

Noel was breaking through, in Camill, to that mendralee repertoire, that communal collective depth of mendralee experience, the mendralee "culture" which transcended any human culture, that mendralee distinctive in which Camill had been steeped and raised and formed for most of her life, for twenty years, ever since a troop of mendralees found a little human girl, alone and lost, out on the alien plain, and they took her in and raised her as one of their own.

Noel was breaking through to the other side in Camill, and it was like finding the Rosetta stone, it was like deciphering the Mayan hieroglyphics at last. In the tight firm clamp of her lovely smooth hand over his mouth, unspeaking, unyielding, unspeakable, there came a message ineffable, a mystic word unspeakable, unspeakable for her hand is over my mouth and I cannot speak, and yet for all that, all the more fraught and freighted with urgent intricate meaning!

By the morning of the ninth day Noel was awash in all the unspeakable mendralee glory conveyed to him in Camill. He lay there with her in the padded cell, her naked front pressed up against his naked back, her legs locked around his legs, her right arm tight across his chest and upper arms, her left hand tight and warm gripping hard over his mouth and cheeks. "MMMMMMHHH!! Mmmmmmhhh! Mmmmmmh, mmm hmmmmm mmmm mmmmmhh!" And in her tense body's geometry encasing him like a living prison, Noel imbibed a world richer than any he had ever known.

Her sharp nails digging into his biceps brought him a caravanserai of Venice and Ragusa and distant Constantinople, pastel banners fluttering over dories and barks and skiffs in harbor. Her teeth nipping and chewing his ear gave news of a new spectrum of colors, like red and green and blue but far beyond, vibrant, ottocent, pillosive. Her tangled auburn hair draped across his bare shoulder conveyed third and fourth harmonics, a minor key colored tangerine, of a symphony conceived by night beneath unknown stars and their alien sororent starlight. And the musky smell, like damp crushed oak leaves, of her long warm unwashed hand squeezing his mouth tight shut was filled with more meaning than a shut-up mouth could speak, or an open mouth express, all like a squadron in gridwork descending from blue autumn skies, fratulent, oviersive, ventrizent, akeiya, mendolsey, traveilyish, ingloderly, meng, vawsome, shorl, mmmmmmhh, mmmmm, wwwmmm, mmmm hhmmmm mmmm mmmmmm hmmmmmmmhhh!!!

Camill loved her Noel, she loved her dolly with a wild mouth holding passion. And Noel was tripping out on Camill. He had gone fully native. With his enhanced ability, he had absorbed and assmilated and internalized her mendralee way. Now Noel too was mendralee. And in the mendralee way through Camill, utterly unexpected, Noel had met and become one with a way far more rich, far more profound, far more thunderous than the inadequate impoverished ways of human culture and human language and threadbare human consciousness.

Even with her beautiful smooth hand tightclamped over his mouth, even with her paltry dozen or two words of human vocabulary, Noel and Camill could now communicate on a level which outstripped all human language, on a plane which left mere words in the dust. Noel now knew Camill. And Noel now knew in unspeakable rich intensity that Camill wanted to go home.

She wanted to go home, back to the dirt burrows, back to the mendralees, back to the grooming and the close quarters and the hoarded roots and berries and the odiferous subterranean dark, back to the collective consciousness that looked like a troop of monkeys to men, but was far deeper than all the shallowness man could boast.

But the orange sun in the sky was now in its flare stage. To venture out of doors, beyond the domes of the City, stark naked in broad daylight, would be fatal.

So Noel and Camill waited, lying there tangled all together, arms and legs, on the floor of the padded cell, with her hand squeezed tight over his mouth so he couldn't speak a word of that poor empty barren bankrupt stream of noises known as human language. Noel made meaningless wordless noises that signified to mendralee. They waited together until supper. They ate supper. Then they waited until after dark.

When no nurse would be watching, Noel picked the lock on the door and let himself and Camill out of the padded cell. With his enhanced ability he had mastered certain useful skills, picked up on past assignments. The two of them walked silently down the hospital corridor, naked; for once Camill let Noel take the lead. He took her hand in his and led her down a vacant stairwell. In the hospital laundry room, near a back exit, they encountered a hospital worker: Noel knocked him out with a quick kung fu! For Noel, with his enhanced ability, had picked up certain useful skills.

Now Noel and Camill sneaked through back alleys, naked as the day they were born, watching and waiting until the way was clear before streaking across an empty street from one block to the next. Sometimes at the last moment they would sight a lone pedestrian coming down the street, and then they would draw back into the shadows, and Camill would hold her hand tightly over Noel's mouth until the danger was past. At last, after more than an hour, they reached the edge of this dome, and Noel applied his lock picking ability to a municipal service hatch. The steel door swung open, they stepped through, the door swung shut and latched behind them.

They were outside, beyond the domes of the City, in the great outdoors. It was night, cool, quiet. The stars twinkled in the sky above, and four of Hyperion's six moons shed light to light their way.

Now Camill took the lead. With her arm around Noel's shoulders, she clamped her soft warm womanly hand over his mouth, to keep him shut up out here in her domain. Human language is no use out here! The ground was level and firm. She led him along in the moonlight, north by northeast. She seemed to be steering by the stars. For hours they walked, until Noel's shins ached and they had to stop and rest. Then they walked some more. They traveled many kilometers, until Noel could no longer see the domes of the City behind them. Camill kept her hand over his mouth most of the way.

They walked until the eastern sky was light, a pale mix of lemon and tangerine. Noel conveyed to Camill wordlessly (since she wouldn't let him open his mouth) his worries: If the sun rises on us before we reach home... Camill reassured him on a level deeper than words: Not to worry, my love; it's not much farther now.

The light in the east grew by the time they came over the final rise, this man and this woman, both of them bare naked, with her hand affectionately fixed over his mouth. They were both human, physically, genetically. But on any level that mattered, they were both almost inhuman; this man and this woman were both much more mendralee than human. Her eyes, beneath her mop of tangled matted auburn hair, her eyes were like the eyes of a wild animal. His eyes, above her creamy smooth hand which covered his mouth and lower face, his eyes were like the eyes of a wild animal. Unless you had the eyes to see, and could see in their eyes the deeper hidden wealth of the mendralee way.

Beyond the rise stood the packed dirt banks of the entrance to the mendralee burrow. Half a dozen mendralees stood near their hole. It was almost time to retreat into the burrow, back underground, before the sun rose. To Noel's eyes the mendralees looked like large monkeys, something perhaps like snow monkeys, Japanese macaques.

Noel turned and looked into Camill's savage wild eyes. With her hand squeezed over his mouth he looked into her eyes, and he read her on a deep level beyond words, beyond grammar, beyond language: Noel, I want you to meet my family! He could see the brimming joy in every slant and angle and fluid flow of her body language, her joy at coming home.

Noel glanced over at the mendralees, who were now looking intently at him and Camill. He saw one mendralee had its hand over another mendralee's mouth. From the ways he had absorbed, he could read the mendralees' rich wordless excitement at the sight of the lost Camill, their curiosity at who she could be bringing home with her.

The answer spilled forth silently from every cranny of Camill's proud posture: I'd like you to meet my dolly, my mate, Noel! And then -- for the sun was about to break the horizon -- the mendralees turned and entered their burrow, crawling underground where they would be shielded from the lethal rays of the sun.

The mendralees crawled underground, into the dirt and the dank and the dark, and two of the mendralees outwardly wore human form, the form of a woman and a man, and she had her hand tightly over his mouth. And Noel was tripping out on Camill, his frangent povey sleerpil miskey vairgeant mmmmmmm hmmm MMMHH Camill.