Alien Child (25 page)

Authors: Pamela Sargent

BOOK: Alien Child

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He put his crutches in a corner and leaned against her as the door to the cold room opened. They stepped forward into the vast room.

“Do you wish to choose an embryo to be revived?” a voice said. “If so, it will be conveyed from its container to—”

“No,” Nita said quickly. “We’re not here to revive anyone.”

“Llare came here to revive me years ago,” Sven said. “I only want to know why—who my parents were.”

“You are the boy who was taken from here,” the voice responded. “Your mother was called Ursule Anteliewicz. Your father’s name was Gustaf Svensen.”

“Why didn’t they come back here for me? Why did they leave me here?”

Nita held her breath. Sven’s hand gripped her shoulder tightly; she worried about how he might react when his question was answered. Perhaps she should have talked him out of coming here.

“Other voices fell silent before your parents could return,” the voice said. “I do not know what happened after that, for I was alone then.”

It was the war, Nita thought. She wondered if Sven’s parents would have returned in any case.

“I want to know what happened before then,” Sven said. “Did they speak to anyone in the Institute after they left, before the voices fell silent? Is there any record of why they didn’t come back?”

“There was one last message. It was sent here before the silence, and placed in my records. It was a private communication, but as it concerns you, I may show it. If you wish to view the message, turn toward the screen next to the door behind you.”

Sven was still.

“Do you wish to see the message?” the voice asked. Nita could see Sven’s face through his transparent helmet; he was biting his lip and looking as though he already regretted his question. Her parents had left no message; what could Sven’s have had to say?

She waited. This was his decision to make.

“Yes,” he said at last. “I’ll look at the message now.” They turned toward the door. “You might as well see it, too.”

A face formed on the screen. Nita gazed into a woman’s gray eyes. Two lines were etched on either side of the woman’s mouth, and her dark-brown hair was threaded with silver strands.

“Lisa, I’m leaving this message for you,” the woman said. “Gustaf and I just found out that you’ll be closing the Institute temporarily until this crisis is past. I should have contacted you before now, but our efforts were needed elsewhere, and I suspect that there won’t be time to revive our child before—”

The woman lowered her eyes. This had to be Sven’s mother; her strong-boned face resembled his. Her words were strangely accented; Nita had to listen closely to understand what she was saying.

“As you know,” Ursule Anteliewicz continued, “Gustaf and I had hoped to bring our son with us when we assumed our new duties on Titov II. Our colleagues there have assured us that their nursery is completed and that the embryo could be revived to gestate there, but we’ve decided not to leave Earth at this time. We feel we must stay here for now and do what little we can to avert what might come. I know that many of your people may be joining with us and the other scientists who are trying to use what influence we have to bring about an agreement that could end this madness. You’ll understand why we have to stay.”

Nita glanced toward Sven. She had not expected to hear this sort of message. The woman paused; her eyes seemed to glisten. “It’s my hope that, before too long, we’ll return there for our child. We will, once this is over— I can’t believe—”

The woman looked away for a moment. “It’s very strange,” she murmured. “All these years, we did our work and dreamed of the day when we could continue our research in space. But I suppose we also wanted to escape this world and all the people who seemed intent on misusing or undoing whatever others managed to accomplish. We wanted our son to live among those who would build something new, not with those who prefer to spread misery and anguish. Now it seems as if our place is here, after all, and that we can’t simply run away.”

Ursule Anteliewicz sighed. “I tell myself that we waited too long, that we should have come for our son before, but unless we can make ourselves heard now, we’ll have little to leave him. I wonder what he would think of us if we had come for him and abandoned Earth and had done nothing to help it when we might have.”

Sven’s lips were pressed tightly together; Nita could not read his expression. He lifted one gloved hand and touched the screen lightly.

“If we succeed, we’ll come there for our child, but maybe this madness has gone too far for us to succeed. For years I’ve told my colleagues to speak out, whatever it cost, but so few listened, and now it may be too late. Some would say I shouldn’t be sending you this message now, as if I could ever see you as an enemy. Gustaf and I will do what we can, but it may be that, if our son ever lives, he’ll have to build on our ruins. I hope he’s able to learn something from that and doesn’t repeat our mistakes. I wish he could find out somehow that his parents struggled against this insanity for as long as they could.”

The woman seemed about to rise, then settled back in her seat. “How solemn I sound. One would think I was saying my last words.” The tiny lines around her eyes deepened as she smiled. “Perhaps we’re making too much of this, Lisa. When this war is averted, and we come there for our son, we can laugh at how panicky we were. If you don’t have time to erase this, at least keep it private—I don’t want my message to cause you trouble. I’m sorry I couldn’t talk directly to you, but there’s no time—we’re already late for a meeting. Good-bye.”

The screen went blank. Sven swayed a little. “She could have escaped,” he said. “My parents could have been safe with those people off-Earth, but they stayed.”

He tore away from her and limped from the room. She caught up with him in the outer chamber. He took off his helmet, set it on the shelf, then leaned against the wall. He was blinking; he closed his eyes for a moment.

Nita removed her own helmet. “They wanted to help,” she said. “They didn’t want to fight, and they were thinking of you. They didn’t abandon you; they would have come back for you.”

His throat moved as he swallowed. “I think I understand why Raen didn’t want to stay. He might still be ashamed, even if he wouldn’t admit it—he might feel that the survivors didn’t do enough to prevent the war. No wonder they’d rather forget. I would have been like that, too, if my parents had left.” He raised his head. “I think I know what they’d want me to do now.”

“I think I do, too. They wouldn’t want us to give up. She had her wish—you know what she tried to do. She’d hope we could build something here.”

“I wonder if we’re ready for it.”

His mother’s words had changed everything, had shown them some of the good that was in their people. “We can try,” she said. “Gestation takes months. We’d have time to learn how to care for them. We can’t possibly bring them all to life at once, but we can revive a few, and some more when they’re older.”

“It’ll be hard,” he murmured.

“Yes, it will, but we’ve lived through some of the problems they’ll have. We know.”

“We might be sorry later.”

She shook her head. “We’ll have troubles, but I’ll think of what your mother said. I won’t regret it then.”

He took her hand. “I guess we’ve decided.”

Llipel and Llare looked up as Nita and Sven drew near. The evening shadows hid their faces; Nita waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Sven said, “We’ve made up our minds.”

“And what have you decided?” Llare asked.

“We’re going to revive a few children,” Nita said. “I don’t think we’ll be able to take care of more than four infants at first, but when they’re older, we can revive others.”

Sven shifted on his crutches. “I hope you’ll tell us what you learned when you were bringing us up,” he said. “It might help. And maybe you can help us explore more of the outside before they’re ready to leave the cryonic facility. We’ll have to learn more about how to live outside this place, so we can teach them.” He looked away from Nita. “We might even have our own children someday.”

Nita thought she saw a warm glow in her guardian’s dark eyes. Could it be that Llipel was pleased with their decision, that she was happy for her and for Sven and would have been disappointed if they had decided otherwise? She could not be sure. The two aliens might only be gratified that they would have a longer time on Earth.

“We’d like you to come with us,” Nita said, “when we go to the cold room again to choose the people we’ll revive. You were our guardians—you should be there, too.”

“We shall do so,” Llipel said, “if you wish.” Her voice was steady and almost indifferent. Nita knew then that she would never truly see into Llipel’s heart. The time for her and Llare to be guardians to the beings they had discovered on Earth was past; they would now be unknowable companions and, later, only distant memories. Her perceptions, of Llipel had been formed by her own expectations and needs, by thoughts and feelings that might have little meaning to the alien.

Yet there was a bridge, however tenuous, linking her to Llipel. Each of them had been able to reach out to a being unlike herself. She would remember that bond when she became a guardian to the children who would now live.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Andy Ross

978-1-5040-1038-2

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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