Alien Child (24 page)

“Is that all you felt?” Sven asked.

“Should I have felt anything else?”

Nita longed to provoke Raen into a recognizably human response; the visitor’s remote tone made her feel more isolated than ever. “What will your people do,” she said, “when they find out about us?”

“They will be gratified to know you are here,” the visitor answered. “But they will not return. This planet is your world now.”

“For how long?” Sven poked at the ground with his stick. “Nita and I are the only ones left.”

“But you are not,” Raen said. “There are the embryos in the cryonic facility, are there not?”

“We could revive them?” Nita was silent for a moment. “And what if they only repeat our people’s actions? What if we destroy this world again?”

“That capacity is within you, but also the ability to turn away from such actions.”

“Really?” Sven flushed as he spoke; his hand trembled on his stick. “I haven’t seen much evidence of that. They couldn’t stop fighting even when they saw their world dying, and the ones who survived ran away. I don’t know why you think we’d be any better.”

“But you can make this world what it might have been,” Raen said. “And perhaps your descendants will eventually join us in space, but they might do so not as survivors of a dead world but as representatives of a world reborn.”

Nita lowered her eyes. She should have been feeling joy at knowing that some of her people had lived, and that there was now a purpose to her life and Sven’s. They could have companions, and perhaps even their own children, to teach. But she felt the weight of that responsibility. How could she and Sven take this upon themselves? How many mistakes might they make, and how many of the ones whom they brought into existence would fail? What could they possibly tell others of their kind about Earth’s people? Only that they had unleashed violence upon themselves, and that the few survivors had fled from their past. She and Sven might not overcome their own darker instincts; they might live to see their world threatened again.

Sven’s face was solemn, as though he was troubled by the same thoughts. “You’re expecting a lot of us,” he said. “We might disappoint you. We might find out that we’re not so good at raising others.”

“I expect nothing,” Raen said. “I cannot compel you to bring those others to life. That must be your decision.”

Llipel and Llare had returned to the garden; Nita looked up as her guardian seated herself. “We have spoken to our—” She motioned with one hand. “You would call them our guardians. They must return to our home, but Llare and I can stay with you for a time here. We shall help if you wish, or leave this world forever if you choose.”

Raen stood up. Nita got to her feet quickly. “I know why you’re here,” she said. “Now I know why you came back.” She took the stranger’s hand. “You came here to help us, too, to be our new guardian so we wouldn’t make the same mistakes. You do care about us, even if you don’t show it, even if—”

Raen said, “That is not why I am here.”

The hand she was holding was limp, neither welcoming her touch nor recoiling from it; she pulled away. “But you know more than we do. You could teach us so much.”

“You could not understand most of it. Your intensity is disorienting to me—it is a reminder of what we gave up.”

“Why did you come here, then?” she cried, unable to bear this human being’s indifference any longer. “Why did you come back at all?”

“Llipel and Llare asked me to return with them.”

“Is that all?” Sven rose from the bench. “Because they asked you to?”

“They felt you should see what your kind, those of us who survived, have become. They thought that I should see you. I felt some curiosity about you when I learned of your existence, but I am here because they asked me to be here. Now I must return to their home. When I see my people again, I shall tell them what I found here.”

“You know what we are,” Sven said angrily. “That’s the reason you’re not staying, isn’t it? You think we’ll fail again, and you won’t do anything to stop it.”

Raen’s eyes widened slightly. “I have told you what I can. You must choose your own way now. I cannot interfere without taking away a choice that should be yours. This is no longer my world.”

“You don’t care about us at all,” the boy shouted. “Our people left us here and forgot about us. They had their war. They abandoned this world and turned into creatures like you. Now you know about us, and you just want to forget us again. You don’t feel anything for us, do you?”

“I feel a concern. You will not be forgotten.” The visitor glanced at Llare and Llipel. “I should not have come here. They did not need to hear my words. I did not need to see what my people once were.”

Sven raised his stick. Nita grabbed his arm, fearing that he would strike. Raen turned away and began to walk toward the tower.

“I’d rather be what I am than what you are!” Sven called after the visitor. “At least I can feel! If that’s the only way you can live, you might as well be dead— part of you’s already dead, anyway.”

“Stop.” Llare’s hand was on Sven’s shoulder. “You must understand,” his guardian continued. “Raen is not without your kind’s feelings. It is only that, in Raen, they do not run as strong. They cannot, for those people have changed too much in themselves, so that they will never again enter a time for fighting. But Raen will feel a little sorrow at your strong words.”

“Why should you have to explain it?” Sven said. “Why should you have to tell us about our own people?”

“They are not your people now. Your people are here, in the cold room.”

Llipel rose to her feet. “We must say farewell to the others,” she said, “before they leave. We will wait here until you tell us of your decision. If you wish to raise others of your kind here, we shall help until it is a time to return to our own kind.”

“And when will that be?” Nita asked.

“Only a short time from now. We will tell you what we learned in raising you, or, if you choose to keep by yourselves, with no others, we shall help you explore more of this world before we go. The time will come, whatever you decide, when we must leave you to make what you can of this place.”

The two walked toward the tower. Nita stared after them until the door had closed behind them, then sank to the ground.

Raen did not care about her and Sven; the only other human being they had ever seen was more alien than their guardians. Llipel and Llare did not care; she and the boy would become only another memory to share with other aliens. The love and concern she had once seen in Llipel were only an unthinking response to the small girl who had depended on her, and that time was past for Llipel.

Llipel and Llare would not compel her and Sven, or even advise them, because it no longer mattered what they did.

A glint overhead caught her eye. Two ships rose above the tower, shrinking, as if fleeing from her world.

18

Sven entered the east wing cafeteria as Nita was sitting down to eat. He made his way to her table, propped his crutches against the window, then sat down.

“How are you feeling?” Nita asked.

“My ankle’s better.” He rested his bandaged foot on a chair. “I’ll go swimming tomorrow. The mind says that’ll be good for it.”

“Can I get you anything to eat?”

He shook his head. “I’m not very hungry now.”

Sven had been keeping to himself during the past two days, since their return. Usually he was in the library; once, she had found him asking the mind about how the craft outside might be repaired. He had not spoken of their journey and said little about Llare and Llipel. He had not mentioned the decision facing them; perhaps he had already decided what he wanted to do and was not ready to speak of it.

He glanced toward Dusky, who was curled up under one table with her kittens. “I’ve been thinking of keeping Tanj in the courtyard for a while,” he said. “He keeps trying to get at the kittens, and I’m afraid he might hurt them.”

“I’ve noticed—that’s why Dusky’s in here.”

“I wonder if I’d be like that with young ones.”

Nita put down her juice. Most of Sven’s talk now was of the cats, or about what he was reading, or of games they might play on the screens, as though these would be their only concerns. “Tanj is a cat,” she said. “He doesn’t know any better. You wouldn’t be deliberately cruel to a child.”

“They’re Tanj’s kittens, too, but all he knows is that they’re smaller and weaker than he is. They can’t fight him, so he can do as he likes. You think I wouldn’t be cruel, but our people didn’t stop their fighting even when they knew children would die. We might be starting that all over again.”

Was he saying that they might revive others, or that he didn’t want
to consider it? “Our people gave up fighting finally,” she said.

“And maybe they wouldn’t have if they hadn’t changed themselves. Look how much it took for them to give it up. Maybe it was only fear that made them stop, not anything good inside them.” He rubbed at the tabletop. “You heard him—her—whatever Raen is. You saw what he was like. They don’t feel anything—that’s why they don’t fight anymore.”

Sven was communicating with her again; she tried to take a little solace in that. “They have some feelings, Sven. Llare said so.”

“They fought,” he said savagely. “They ran away, they hid, they forgot about Earth. Are we supposed to start that all over again?”

Nita gazed out the window. Llare and Llipel were sitting outside under a tree not far from the pool. She was beginning to wish that they had simply told her and Sven what to do instead of leaving this decision to them. This world’s future was in her hands and Sven’s; how could they leave Earth’s fate to one boy and one girl?

She sighed, remembering again that their guardians, by the standards of their people, had little more experience than she and Sven. But at least they were able to return to people who could guide them.

She could avoid the decision. She had the cold comfort of knowing that a remnant of their people lived elsewhere, whatever they had become, and that their time for living here had passed. Perhaps it was better to leave things that way. Earth could be left to the beasts of the forest, plains, and oceans. She and Sven could still explore and add knowledge to the mind’s records; they would have that as a purpose, and other beings might come to Earth to gather that knowledge in the far future. Earth would be safe from her kind, and her life would be easy. They would not have to struggle against repeating their kind’s mistakes.

Raen knew about them now, and probably had a way of communicating the news to the other descendants of Earth. She could leave it to them to decide what to do, although she supposed they would be as uncaring as Raen. The decision, at least, would be out of her hands and could be made by those who were wiser, not by two who had never really known anyone except their guardians—and she had not even comprehended Llipel and Llare in the end.

Sven was staring out the window. “We’ll have to tell them something soon,” he said. “They told us they’d be here only a short time.”

“I have a feeling that a short time for them is a long time for us. They might wait for quite a while. Maybe when we’re older—”

He leaned back. “Nita, I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t either. Maybe we shouldn’t decide now.”

“Waiting isn’t going to make it any easier, and we don’t know how long they’ll stay. Their people may already be planning to leave our sun.”

“We could ask them how long they’ll wait,” she said.

“I don’t know if they’ll tell us. They might not even know.” He folded his arms. “They don’t care. Raen doesn’t care—why should we?”

“It isn’t right to leave this to us,” she muttered. “It’s too much for us to decide. We might not even live long enough to know if what we did was right. If only—”

If only, she thought, she could believe in herself and in Sven. She was all too aware of their weaknesses and their capacity for anger and despair. Their journey had helped them forge a kind of bond with each other, but she did not yet know how strong that bond would prove to be. She remembered how ready they had been to assume that Llipel and Llare might be their enemies. If only she could believe that the good in them could overcome their weakness.

Their people had not left them any examples that might give her cause for hope—only parents who had forgotten them and had not cared if they lived at all, and a visitor who had retreated from all that Earth’s people had been. Perhaps the evil in her people ran so deep that their only choice was to become beings like Raen; it seemed a kind of death.

Sven got to his feet slowly. “I never did go inside the cryonic facility,” he said as he reached for his crutches. “Maybe it’s time I learned who my parents were—not that it makes any difference. Will you come with me?”

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“I might as well. It won’t change anything. It doesn’t matter now if I find out exactly why they never came for me.”

Nita smoothed down the sleeves of her silvery suit, then put on a helmet. Sven’s helmet was already over his head. “Well,” he said; she heard him draw in his breath sharply. “Let’s go in.”