Alien Earth (34 page)

Cradle of life, whispered a half-forgotten poem.

The suite made an odd wheezing sound as it crumpled to the damp pebbles and sand, sighing out in relief or despair. Then the rounded wet stones were cold beneath her bare feet, and as salt water rushed in to kiss them all over, pebbles, sand, and feet, she gasped in the coldness of the caress.

The birds were crying out her name, frantically, warningly, but their voices came from too far away to be important. All that was important now was how her breath kept perfect time with each reaching wet wave. Light and water and sky as far as her eyes could see, and John had been right, she was a part of it and it was part of her and it was all perfect, all right. If you were a part of this, it was okay to be Human.

She picked her way closer, stepping from white stubbled stone to stone. One shifted suddenly beneath her weight, pitching her stumbling steps onto packed sand. On its next reach, the rocking blue ocean sucked the very earth from under her feet. She turned slightly in the water’s grip, slipping and falling. She heard her ship’s trousers tear. The wave rushed away from her, allowed her to fall on the hard-packed sand. It took her a moment to recover from the jolt. Then, before she could move again, the waters were back, surrounding her, engulfing her, wetting her to the waist. As this wave withdrew, tiny pebbles rattled away with it, and the sand be
neath her shifted in its desire to follow. It was the pulse and respiration of the world, and it breathed her in.

“Connie!”

She met the next wave on her hands and knees. It hit her face first, snapping her head back on her neck, then washing over her, rolling her over, drawing her out with it. Stinging water up her nose, burning in the cut on her hand, sand gritting between her fingers. Her tunic and trousers clung to her, binding her tightly until several seams gave way. She started to cough, but water flooded her mouth and nose instead. It was all going very fast now, the cold, the salt, and the blue. Brief lightness and touch of air upon her as her body caught against a rock and the wave abandoned her. Ah, now she remembered, she’d been here before, this close to belonging. Water, salt, and blood. Last time they’d dragged her back, made her alone again, and tried to wash away all memory of that blessed oneness with the unthinking world. Not this time. She gasped in a breath, opened sandy eyes. Sandy water, thick as porridge, filled her mouth, dripped from her chin, trickled from her fingers. She wiped sandy eyes with sandy hands, had a glimpse of blue sky and a line of trees before the waves closed over her again.

She gave herself over to it, let it tumble her in its grip. Rocking blue coldness, insensibility, the reality somehow a memory, too. It could take her away from everything, and she would be one with it. Bared skin scraped rock, stung, went numb. Colder, rougher, wetter than she thought it would be, but the Earth had claimed her for its own at last.

Something gripped her wrist, jerked. She felt her shoulder almost part from its socket as powers battled over her. Then the ocean suddenly surrendered and withdrew, leaving her to whatever other force now claimed her. It dragged her up and back, over rough stony terrain that gouged her skin and tore at her wet clothes. She choked, spat out sand and water, sand grit inside her mouth, on her teeth, and under her tongue. She gasped in a breath of air, water, and sand, but mostly air, and after blinking a dozen times, she could suddenly see.

“John!” she protested as soon as she understood that he was the force sundering her from the water. Another wave reached after them, clutching at Connie as it drenched her but
barely coming up to John’s calves. John halted where he was, and set his weight against the ocean’s final plea. She looked up to see muscle stand out in his arms and on his chest as he claimed her. Then the water was gone and he was dragging her again, up out of the waves’ reach, over rough sand and then coarse rounded gravel. She started to struggle, belatedly, but he ignored it. That was frightening, to find that he was physically so much stronger than she.

And infuriating. She spat out more sand, managed to scrabble about and set her heels. She gripped the wrist of the hand that dragged her. “Let go!” she commanded him.

He did, and she fell hard on packed gravel. It hurt. Suddenly everything hurt, the deep cut of her palm, the abraded skin on her legs and ribs, her shoulder and wrist where he had dragged her. Hurting worst was that he’d pulled her back.

She sat up, dragging her knees up under her chin and wrapping her arms around them. Her ship’s tunic and trousers, never intended for such rough use, gaped open to expose her skinned knees and scratched ribs. Water still ran down her face and dripped from her chin. She turned her head and spat out more sand. She wanted badly to blow her nose, but had no tissue. Infuriating. She compromised by dragging what was left of her sleeve across her nose and eyes. It was laden with sand.

She sighed, heavily and abruptly. She’d thought she’d been about to cry, but now it felt impossible. There wasn’t a tear left in her. Nothing was left in her. No thing. She put her head down on her knees.

“Connie?”

When she didn’t answer, he touched her shoulder, just once, lightly. “Connie?”

She didn’t lift her head. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

“I didn’t think you were!” Startled.

“It was just so big, and I was too small. It was all rightness, and I’ve always been a wrong thing. And you were right. I was part of it, and it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d died. I’d still be part of it, and finally right. I’m so tired of being ashamed and guilty. Of being Human.”

To her surprise, John dropped to the sand beside her. “I know that, too. But you don’t have to be dead to be part of this place. We just are.”

She turned her head to look at him, resting her cheek atop her skinned knees. He sat beside her, knees likewise drawn up, but with his arms crossed atop them. He stared out over the sea. Salt water glistened in droplets that clung to the stubble on his skull and cheeks. His wet clothes were slicked to his body. She saw him take a breath and sigh it out. She thought he was going to speak. When he didn’t, she surprised herself by talking.

“I grew up in one of the horticultural colonies. I started working as soon as I was out of creche. We all did. It was never physically hard work, but it was demanding. I was an Interceptor. Early each day, we gathered the petals that had fallen from the Juliet blossoms overnight. A meticulous record had to be kept of how many grams of petals each individual plant dropped. Then, each evening, a nutrient ration, exactly equivalent to what those dropped petals would have returned to the soil, had to be applied around each plant, in exact proportion to what each plant had dropped.”

She paused, sighed, stopped speaking. He still stared out over the sea. She studied his profile, the furrowed brow and pursed lips. She wondered why she was telling him these things. His eyes flicked over, to glance at her from their corners. “Sounds tedious.”

She shrugged, felt wet sand chafe inside her clothes. “Worse than tedious. Hopeless. The whole idea of the task was to accomplish it in such a way that I made no difference at all. Oh, I knew the petals were dried and ground into flour for bread, and that the nutrients returned to each plant were an end product from the recycling system. We were supposed to feel good about our part in helping insert Humans into the natural cycle with no affect on it. Most of the other kids did. But to me it seemed as if my whole function was to make sure that my actions made no difference. To leave everything as if I had never been.”

“Hmm.” It wasn’t a reply or a comment. But it let her go on.

“A plant could take what it needed and drop what it didn’t, but I couldn’t. Because the plant belonged there, but I didn’t. And later on, it seemed that because I didn’t belong, I didn’t deserve anything. I was just a peculiar sort of thief—I stole, and then replaced what I had taken before it could be
missed. At first, it was just the Interceptor duty that made me feel that way. But as I got older, the feeling spread to everything I did. Make no impact. Don’t make a difference. Any change you make in the world is wrong. I went from ‘do not be felt’ to ‘do not be seen.’”

“And, finally, to ‘do not be.’” He didn’t look at her as he spoke, could not have seen her nod.

“I knew the feelings were not right, that not everyone could have them. But still I didn’t go for help.”

“Why not?”

He turned to look at her. Their eyes met and she forced herself to hold the contact. To be seen.

“Scared. It was bad enough that I knew about me. I didn’t want anyone else to know.”

“Oh.”

He’d heard the lie. She took a breath, forced herself. “No. That’s not all of it. I didn’t want them to know because they’d change me. And feeling different, even if it was feeling bad, was the only thing I had that made me, me. If I let them fix me, I’d just disappear….

“So I just kept going on. I got good marks. I knew all the right answers to attitude questions. I just couldn’t feel the right answers. But I thought I could get by.

“Then they did my final testing. The physical data outweighed any reservations they might have had about my other scores. I qualified to be a Mother. I refused.”

John didn’t speak, didn’t reveal the shock he must be feeling. To qualify to be a Mother and then to deny it? Unheard of. It wasn’t just honor refused, it was duty scorned. But he just sat there, watching her and breathing. She couldn’t recall when she’d last spoken this much to a Human. Counselors didn’t count. She’d never been aware of them as she was aware of John now. They’d listened, but they listened to correct her. John listened to hear her.

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t make children whose sole function would be to not have any impact on the world. I couldn’t do it. They kept at me for three years, always reminding me that my decision wasn’t irrevocable. They began to suspect me, as time went by, but I was very careful. I voiced the accepted objections, I was logical and calm. And then, somehow, by the worst stroke of fate, I drew a teacher, one who
turned out to be unadjusted. He taught me wrong things, and I mouthed them back to him, as I had always mimicked back whatever I was taught. So when they discovered him, I was trapped as well; they had all the evidence they needed, in my papers, that I had incorrect attitudes….” She paused. “No.” She said it with difficulty, not lifting her head from her arms, but speaking through them. “That happened, but it wasn’t the real reason they adjusted me. It was just the one they suggested I use if I ever wanted to tell anyone about it.”

“Oh?” John asked carefully.

She nodded, her face rasping against the drying fabric of her sleeves, and waved him to silence without lifting her face. She was determined to finish. “I don’t remember doing it. I think that was one of the memories they took. But I remember them fixing the scars on my arms, so I know I did it. I tried to illegally terminate…. Damn. I tried to kill myself. I’d requested termination, but they refused it because I was physically good Mother quality. I requested it three times, and then one night, I went to my dorm and tried to do it myself. With a hand pruner.” She choked an instant. “Funny,” she managed to say, “I don’t remember doing it. But I remember the water and the blood floating in it and being safe. Going home. But I couldn’t remember that until today.” She found she couldn’t say more.

“And they found you in time and kept you alive anyway,” John filled in.

She nodded mutely.

“And they adjusted you.”

Another nod.

“And it didn’t take.”

She nodded again, more slowly, admitting it for the very first time. For so very long, she had been so very careful that none should know. For so long she had feared that someone would find out and tell, and that she would not be strong enough to withstand another Adjustment, would not be able to trick and lie her way through it. She watched him carefully as he accepted his ability to expose her, and waited for his reaction.

He lifted one shoulder and one eyebrow, lowered them again. “So? What about today? You still want to die?”

“No.” Amazing how sure she suddenly was of that an
swer. It took a very small movement of her body to be leaning against him. She made it, and when she was there, it didn’t seem to matter. “I fought the Adjustment and I won. But I guess I’ve been afraid since then that somehow they’d find out, and come after me again. They did let me opt out of being a Mother, but I know it’s only temporary. If I don’t switch over to that option soon, they’ll know the Adjustment didn’t take. They’ll come after me again. They won’t even let me just die. They’ll keep after me until I’m what they want me to be.” She thought a moment. “I don’t want to kill myself. But I’d rather die here than let that happen to me.”

His sleeve was damp and sandy when he put his arm across her shoulders.

“Me, too, I guess.” They stared out across the ocean together.

“T
UG
!”

Raef’s voice rang throughout his chambers. For an instant Tug was paralyzed by shock, and then doubt silenced him. Had he been isolated so long that he would imagine such a thing? Surely if Raef had awakened he would have known it. But no, monitoring the wombs, the awakenings and dream cycles, had been part of Evangeline’s tasks. Although he had always supervised her, she had been in charge of it, and he had not thought to attempt to monitor Raef for some days. In truth, he had given very little thought to his charge. He had accepted that Raef would die. It had scarcely mattered when or how.

“Come on, Tug, talk to me. I know you can hear me, and I know you can talk back. We’ve got some stuff to do, and I’d rather do it with your cooperation than without it.”

It made no sense for there to be antagonism in Raef’s voice, but the tinge was unmistakable. And something else was there, a confidence that replaced Raef’s former bluster and bluff. As if he truly were in command of the ship, and not the “relief skipper” he had fantasized himself into being. Purpose, too. Raef ranged down a darkened corridor as confidently as if he were going to finally disembark.

“Tug?” Raef prodded.

“I’m here,” Tug replied guardedly.

“Well, of course you are, where else would you be?”

Raef had manually lit up John’s personal quarters off the command chamber. Odd, that he would go there. He was already inside the cleanser and starting to gel up. He continued to speak casually to Tug, as if all were well and normal. “Tug, punch up some food and some clothes for me, would you? Things will go faster if you do that while I clean up.”

“Certainly. And then you’ll have all the more time to explain to me how you came to be awake, off schedule like this.”

“Nope.” Raef lifted a glistening sheet of gel from his leg, studied the peeling skin embedded in it. “Right now, I have to brief you on our present mission. Evangeline and I have decided …”

Before Tug could be shocked by the words, his equilibrium warned him of worse things. He felt the slight flexing of his chamber that announced an abrupt course change.

“What is going on?” he cut in.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Raef went on calmly. “Evangeline and I just tried to make contact with John and Connie. Ship-to-ship communication seems to work marginally; Evangeline suspects an organic breakdown within the shuttle’s systems.” Raef stepped from the cleansing chamber, glanced around. “Come on, Tug; clothes and food.”

Tug’s mind leaped frantically as he tried to gain some control of the situation. “Where’s the shuttle? How did you know John and Connie had left the ship? Raef, I need information.”

“Which I’m giving you.” Raef waited a moment, then shrugged. “Fine. I’m not as dependent on you as you seem to think, Tug.” He stepped to the food dispensers, competently entered his request, and then rummaged a locker for clothes. “No one’s as dependent on you as you think,” Raef added pointedly.

“You’ve disrupted my command of my ship. Under your old Earth laws, I could execute you for that.”

“Sure. Only you’d need Evangeline’s help to do it. I don’t think she’d be willing to help you just now. You may not think so, but that’s true. She knows which sensations mean you’re changing conditions in the gondola. She told me about her ‘itchy’ experiments. You punished her for it, but not before she’d puzzled out most of it. Lights in the cargo
bays. Temperature in the Human chambers. She may not have it fine-tuned yet, but she knows how to block any signals from you that would change environmental conditions here. So don’t think you can freeze me out or cut off my atmosphere. Things have changed, Tug. Better go with the flow or get washed up. Besides, we don’t have time to argue right now. Things are happening.”

Raef paused. Tug kept his silence, more stunned than angry. None of what Raef was telling him was possible. One of Raef’s fantasies had gotten out of control in his mind, that was all. Except that if somehow he had managed to communicate directly with Evangeline, then everything else fell into place….

“Look, I’m not holding out on you. The shuttle landed safely on Earth. Evangeline and I saw to that. Much more than that, we don’t know. She’s been reluctant to follow up on it. She tells me that for her to monitor a voice channel was strictly forbidden. Which seems really weird to me. But, anyway, I explained how it was an emergency, and I told her to try for voice contact on the communications channel—”

“You what?” Tug was outraged. In one moment of awful clarity, he glimpsed the extent of the disruption in Evangeline’s behavior. And its source. He didn’t know how Raef had managed to communicate with her, but casual conversation with anyone as unbalanced as Raef would be enough to send Evangeline’s thoughts down some very dangerous channels. Certainly it would be more than enough to account for her erratic behavior of late. It had long ago been decided that any contact between Beastships and any species other than the Arthroplana would lead to disaster for all. Centuries of safeguards had prevented even the most fleeting direct contact from ever occurring. Until now. And witness the havoc it had already caused. And if Raef had been so foolish as to allow her unchaperoned discourse with other Humans as well …

“… but she couldn’t figure out how to modulate a signal into a voice, or to patch it through to me. Yet.” Raef pulled up the trousers, grimaced at their snugness. “Anyway. This much we do know. There’s an emergency beacon screaming, and when she did manage to trigger a response from the shuttle on the voice communications channel, her
analysis showed it to be a mechanical reproduction of a message rather than a Human voice response. So we discussed it, and she’s going to take us into the lowest orbit she can maintain, and try to signal the shuttle again. I convinced her that this rescue effort would go a lot better with your cooperation. She seemed to think you’d refuse to help us. Anyway. I need to talk to John and Connie, and to do that quickly, we have to go through you. So, she’s willing to talk to you again, but not too happy about it. I guess I don’t need to tell you that she doesn’t like you much.” Raef paused again. “Tug, are you listening?”

“You have no idea of the immensity of the disaster you are fomenting.”

“What?” Raef was peeling film from the top of a food tray.

“It will all be dealt with later.” Even talking with Raef was a waste of time now. If Tug was ever to regain command, he had to act swiftly, before Evangeline could be subverted any further. Tug settled himself in position, extended his receptors. Evangeline’s ganglia rose obediently to dock with him. He fought to keep his feeling of relief from bleeding through to her. Instead, he put a very stern note into his command. “Evangeline, open communications with the shuttle.”

Nothing happened. He sensed her there, knew she was aware of him and listening. But not responding. Her passivity woke in him an incredible rage. “Evangeline!” he repeated, not caring that he hadn’t sealed the channel, that Raef was probably listening in.

“She’s not going to obey until you’ve listened to me,” Raef told him calmly. “We’ve worked out a password system. She can’t listen in on what’s going on between us yet, but she thinks she’ll figure out a way soon. Until she does, she knows that I won’t give you the password until you’ve heard me out and agreed to cooperate.” Raef picked up a chunk of food and bit into it.

Tug mulled it silently. The whole situation was intolerable. For the first time he faced how criminally foolish it had been for him to maintain Raef, after his own species had condemned him. “Nurturing a viper in his bosom,” yes, the Hu
mans knew how to express the treachery inherent in their own race.

“Tug. I know you don’t like it, but you’re going to have to deal.”

“Am I?”

His nematocysts were completely refilled with venom. He lifted two high, knew she sensed his decision, and had the brief satisfaction of sensing how she braced herself against the pain. Despite her efforts, Tug felt her entire body flinch.

“Stop it.” Raef’s voice rang with controlled fury. “I know what you’re about to do, and you’d damn well better reconsider.”

Tug ignored him, and plunged the nematocysts into her. He’d let the barbs set and give her the full dosage. If Raef’s nervous system couldn’t withstand her response, well, Tug could accept his loss. But Evangeline would be brought under control.

[It won’t work.]

Tug ignored her, let the venom pump. Evangeline shuddered. Dimly he was aware of Raef’s screaming as he flung himself impotently about in the command chamber. The Human’s fists battered monitors, voice speakers, anything that was an indication of Tug’s presence. “Leave her alone! Stop hurting her! You have no right, you bastard, you son of a bitch!” Interesting, how the Human had become attuned to her. It seemed a genuine empathic response. Tug felt not a thing. He let the last measure of his venom pump into Evangeline, sensed her agony. Waited for her shrieking capitulation.

[It’s only pain.]

The ship suddenly steadied. She did not veer from her new course, did not even slacken her speed. The pain had to be all but paralyzing, but she was fighting it. He was baffled. How could a Beastship resist its conditioning?

[Pain, as, of course, you know, is only pain.] A didactic tone, calm, rational, purged of whatever it cost her. A recitation of something learned but not yet understood completely. [Pain is only the body’s signal that something is amiss. The greater the damage to the body, the more severe the pain. It is the body’s way of letting the mind know damage has been sustained by the vessel that encloses it.]

Long pause. She’d be feeling the full effects by now. She’d have to come around.

[But pain is not damage, and damage is not pain.]

Was this Evangeline’s voice? It did not ring true. It wasn’t only the vocabulary, there was a tone to it, a tremolo of feeling he had never encountered in any Beast. He listened in a kind of horrified fascination.

[One does not die of pain. A torturer knows that, and uses the spur of pain rather than the threat of death to wring what he wants from his victim. But, if one is strong, if one has a reason to resist, if one can say, intellectually, “This is but pain, there is no damage,” and know it to be truth, why, then, one can ignore the pain and continue.]

A coldness washed through Tug.

[And it is truth, of course, that the most successful of parasites do not do extensive damage to the host body. The objective of parasitism is to live off the host without doing anything to impede the host from feeding, or defending itself, or mating to produce other potential hosts.] Her tone changed suddenly from lecturing to threatening. [Parasite, remember this. You cannot do anything that actually damages me without risking damage to yourself.]

Tug forced control into his voice. “It is easy to talk of withstanding pain, but harder to do. How long can you do it before you must become reasonable again?”

[Until we die.] Her voice was so calm—more than that, so mature, so thoughtful. [Until death becomes logically to be preferred to the continuing pain, and I choose it. Have you never wondered, Tug, what it would be like to fly into a sun?]

Tug was very still. There was no mistaking Evangeline’s threat. She could kill them both, but he had, perhaps, one hostage she had overlooked. He looked in on Raef, who, exhausted, sprawled in a command lounge, but still thudded one fist dully against the board. Idly Tug wondered how much time had passed for Raef as he struggled within the Beastship. Humans measured time in such minute fragments.

“And Raef?”

[We have discussed it. It frightens both of us, but I think we could steel ourselves to it, if the alternative were lingering pain. We have a signal agreed upon. He would come back to
me, seal himself within my womb. And we would be together when we died, helping each other. But you would die alone.]

“Raef may say such things, but he doesn’t have it in him to do them. He’d die a screaming madman.” Tug put total disdain into his voice. How had Raef ever come to mean so much to her? She must be forced to see him as weak, insignificant.

[He has not lived a screaming madman. Do you forget this death is a thing Raef has already faced, long ago?]

“I forget nothing.”

[Then I will open communication with John and Connie, and you will let Raef speak.]

“Beast, you forget who is in command here.”

[No. I, too, forget nothing. Will you let Raef speak to John and Connie?]

“No!” If he gave in on this one request, all control was lost to him. They were dead anyway. Letting Raef attempt to speak to them would only give him an exaggerated view of his powers over Tug.

[Then we’ll have to go to our alternative plan. It’s much riskier, but then a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.]

Tug felt Evangeline begin a slow roll.

He must have slept at last
,
exhausted by the agony. But even the pain couldn’t completely control the wonder. He’d not been in the womb, not in Waitsleep, and yet he’d felt her sudden fear of Tug, and then the pain he gave her. Damn, the incredible, incredible pain, like every nerve in his body had been dipped in acid. Separated from her, in the gondola, he’d still shared her feelings, not only her physical pain, but her hatred for Tug. He had no idea how long it had claimed him. But at last his frailer body had yielded, and he’d passed out. And from thence into sleep, he supposed.

But not true sleep, nor Waitsleep, but something in between, peopled by the dreams he couldn’t control, the awful old dreams. Once sleep had brought him rest, but no more. Waitsleep only took him to Evangeline’s needs, and this sleep only took him back to his fears.

He’d dreamed of Jeffrey’s body doing that slow horrid twist, suspended by the bright scarves he’d plaited together to hang himself from the open beams in his attic bedroom. Raef
had been the first to find him, and he had stared long, speechless with pain. He had hanged himself naked, and his stretched pale body with its delicate bone structure and long, flat muscles reminded him coldly of a plucked bird hung in the window of an oriental restaurant. The body had turned slowly as Raef stared up at it, revealing the half-healed welts over the knobs of his spine and down his ribs that were the tokens of his father’s disapproval.