Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (50 page)

When xenophobias collide . . . Aaron sees Foy isn’t going to be much help, but he tries again.

“The business of the planet being ideal, a paradise and so on, that bothered me, too.”

“Oh, I feel that Captain Yellaston put his finger on the answer there, Aaron. The excitement, the elation. I hadn’t appreciated it. Now that I’ve seen these, I confess I feel it myself.”

“Yeah.” Aaron sighs. In addition to the elegant solution, Frank has received the Word. Captain Yellaston (who art in Heaven) has explained.

“Aaron, I confess I
hate
these things!” Foy says unexpectedly.

Aaron mumbles, thinking, possible, maybe he does. On the surface, anyway. With a peculiar smiling-through-tears look Foy goes on, “Your sister is such a wonderful person. Her strength is as the strength of ten, because her heart is pure.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Suddenly the evening chow-call chimes out, saving him. Aaron bolts into the nearest passageway. Oh, no. Not Frank Foy. No ball-breaking here, though. Abelard and Héloïse, so pure. A perfect match, really . . . What would Frank say if he told him about Lory and himself? Hey, Frank, when we were kids I humped my little sister all over the Sixth Army District, she screwed like a mink in those days. On second thought, forget it, Aaron tells himself. He knows how Frank would react. “Oh.” Long grave pause. “I’m terribly sorry, Aaron. For you.” Maybe even in priestly tones, “Would it help you to talk about it?” Etsanctimoniouscetera. A tough case, will the real Frank Foy ever stand up? No. Lucky it doesn’t interfere with his being a damn good mathematician. Maybe it helps, for all I know. Humans! . . . A good food-smell is in his nose, lifting his mood. Chemoreceptors have pathways to the primitive brain. Ahead are voices, music, lights.

Maybe Foy’s right, Aaron muses. How about that? Lory’s story does dovetail. Am I getting weird? Sex fantasies about Sis, I haven’t had that trouble for years. It’s being locked up with her, Tighe, that alien—a big armful of Soli, that’s what I need. Solace, Soul-ass . . . Resolutely ignoring a sensation that the alien is now straight overhead outside the hull, Aaron fills a server and takes it over to a seat by Coby and Jan Ing, the Xenobiology chief with whom he will be working tomorrow. He’s Lory’s boss; Lory herself isn’t here.

“Quite a crowd tonight.”

“Yeah.” In recent years more and more of
Centaur
’s people have been eating alone at odd hours, taking their food to their rooms. Now there’s a hubbub here. Aaron sees the Peruvian oceanographer has a chart propped by his server, he’s talking to a circle of people with his mouth full, pointing. Miriamne Stein and her two girl friends—
women
friends, Aaron corrects himself—who usually eat together are sitting with Bruce Jang and two men from Don’s crew. EVA Chief George Brokeshoulder has shaved a black black war-crest on his copper scalp, he hasn’t bothered to do that in years. Åhlstrom is over there with Akin the Photo chief, for heaven’s sake. The whole tranquillized ship is coming to life, tiger-eyes opening, ape-brains reaching. Even the neat sign which for so long has read, THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF OUR LIVES IS GARBAGE. PLEASE CLEAN YOUR SERVERS, has been changed: someone has taped over GARBAGE and lettered BEAUTY.

“Notice the treat we’re getting, boss,” says Coby munching. “How did Alice get Kawabata to let loose some chicken? Oh, oh—look.”

The room falls silent as Alice Berryman holds up dessert—a plate of real, whole peaches.

“One half for each person,” she says severely. She is wearing a live flower over her ear.

“People are becoming excited,” the XB chief observes. “How will it sustain itself for nearly two years?”

“
If
we go to that planet,” Aaron mutters.

“I could make an amoral suggestion,” Coby grins. “Tranks in the water supply.”

Nobody laughs. “We’ve made out so far without, uh, chemical supplementation, as Frank would say,” says Aaron. “I think we’ll hold out.”

“Oh, I know, I know. But don’t say I didn’t warn you it may come to that.”

“About tomorrow,” Jan Ing says. “The first thing we will get will be the biomonitor records from the personnel section of the scout ship, right? Before we proceed to open the cargo space?”

“That’s the way I hear it.”

“Immediately after opening the alien’s module I plan to secure biopsy sections. Very minimal, of course. Dr. Kaye says she doesn’t believe that will harm the alien. We’re working on extension probes that can be manipulated from outside the hatch.”

“The longer the better,” Aaron says, imagining tentacles. “Assuming the alien life-form is still alive. . . . ” The XB chief taps out a silent theme, probably from Sibelius. “We’ll know when we get our hands on the record.”

“It should be.” Aaron has been feeling the thing lying out beyond the buffet wall. “Tell me, Jan, do you ever have an impression that the thing is, well,
present?
”

“Oh, we’re all conscious of that.” Ing laughs. “Biggest event in scientific history, isn’t that so? If only it is alive.”

“You getting bad vibrations, boss? The dreams?” Coby inquires.

“Yeah.” But Aaron can’t go on, not with Coby’s expression. “Yeah, I am. A xenophobe at heart.”

They go into a discussion of the tissue-analyzing program and the type of bioscanners that will be placed inside the alien’s module.

“What if that thing comes charging out into the corridor?” Coby interjects. “What if it’s had kittens or split into a million little wigglers?”

“Well, we have the standard decontaminant aerosols,” Jan frowns. “Captain Yellaston has emphasized the precautionary aspect. He will, I believe, be personally standing by the emergency vent control, which could very quickly depressurize the corridor in case of real emergency. This means we will be wearing suits. Awkward working.”

“Good.” Aaron bites the delicious peach, delighted to hear that old Yellaston’s hand will be on the button. “Jan, I want a clear understanding that no part of that thing is taken into the ship. Beyond the corridor, I mean.”

“Oh, I entirely agree. We’ll have a complete satellite system there. Including mice. It will be crowded.” He swabs his server with cellulose granules from the dispenser, frowning harder. “It would be unthinkable to harm the specimen.”

“Yeah.” Lory has still not come in, Aaron sees. Probably eating in her room after that mob scene. He joins the recycle line, noticing that the usual glumness of the routine seems to have evaporated. Even Coby omits his scatological joke. What are Kuh’s people eating now, Aaron wonders, telepathic vegetable steaks?

Lory is quartered—naturally—in the all-female dorm on the opposite side of the ship. Aaron hikes up a spiral crossship ramp, as usual not quite enjoying the sharp onset of weightlessness as he comes to
Centaur’
s core. Her central core is a wide free-fall service shaft from bow to stern, much patronized by the more athletic members of the crew. Aaron kicks awkwardly across it, savoring the rich air. It comes from a green-and-blue radiance far away at the stern end—the Hydroponics Farm and the Hull Pool, their other chief amenity. He shudders slightly, recalling the horrible months when the air even here was foul and the passageways dark. Five years ago an antibiotic from somebody’s intestinal tract had mutated instead of being broken down by passage through the reactor coolant system. When it reached the plant beds it behaved as a chlorophyll-binding quasi-virus and Kawabata had had to destroy seventy-five percent of the oxygenating beds. A terrible time, waiting with all oxygen-consuming devices shut down for the new seedlings to grow and prove clean. Brr . . . He starts “down” the exit ramp to Lory’s dorm, past the cargo stores and service areas. People aren’t allowed to live in less than three-quarters gee. Corridors branch out every few meters leading to other dorms and living units.
Centaur
is a warren of corridors, that’s part of the program, too.

He comes to the tiny foyer or commons room outside the dorm proper and sees red hair beyond a bank of ferns: Lory—chewing on her supper, as he’d guessed. What he hadn’t expected is the large form of Don Purcell, hunched opposite her deep in conversation.

Well, well! Mildly astounded, Aaron right-flanks into another passage and takes himself off toward his office, blessing
Centaur
’s design. The people of
Pioneer
had suffered severely from the stress of too much social contact in every waking moment; the answer found for
Centaur
was not larger spaces but an abundance of alternative routes that allow her people to enjoy privacy in their comings and goings about the ship, as they would in a village. Two persons in a two-meter corridor must confront each other, but in two one-meter corridors each is alone and free to be his private self. It has worked well, Aaron thinks; he has noticed that over the years people have developed private “trails” through the ship. Kawabata, for instance, makes his long way from Farm to Messhall by a weird route through the cold sensor blister. He himself has a few. He grins, aware that his mind is demonstrating his total lack of irritation at finding Lory with another man.

In the clinic office Bruce Jang is chatting up Solange. When Aaron comes in, Bruce holds up five spread fingers meaningfully. Aaron blinks, finally remembers.

“Five more people think they’ve seen Tighe?”

“Five and a half. I’m the half. I only heard him this time.”

“You heard Tighe’s voice? What did he say?”

“He said good-bye. That’s all right with me, you know?” Bruce shows his teeth.

“Bruce, does your five include Åhlstrom or Kawabata?”

“Kawabata, yes. Åhlstrom, no. Six then.”

Solange is registering discovery, puzzlement. “Do these people understand they have not really seen him?”

“Kidua and Morelli, definitely no. Legerski is suspicious, he said Tighe looked weird. Kawabata—who knows? The oriental physiognomy, very opaque.” Supersquirrel lives.

“I think it is good I brought him to the meeting,” Solange says. “I had the hunch, so people will see he is around and not worry.”

“Yeah, good.” Aaron takes a breath. “I’ve been having nightmares lately, if it’s of any interest. The last one featured Tighe. He said good-bye to me, too.”

Bruce’s eyes snap. “Oh? You’re in Beta section. That’s bad.”

“Bad?”

“My five sightings had a common factor before you blew it. Everyone was in Gamma section, fairly near the hull, too. That was nice.”

“Nice.” Aaron knows at once what Bruce means:
China Flower
’s official name is
Gamma
, and the Gamma section is above her berth. But of course she isn’t docked, now.

“Bruce, does that tether extend straight out? I’m no engineer. I mean, we’re rotating; is she trailing?”

“Not much. A shallow tractrix. She already had our rotation when they ran her out.”

“Then that alien is right under all the people who hallucinated Tighe.”

“Yeah. All but you. We’re in Beta here. And of course Åhlstrom is pretty far forward.”

“But Tighe himself is here,” says Solange. “In Beta with you.”

“Yeah, but look,” Aaron leans back. “Aren’t we getting into witch-doctoring? There are other common factors. First, we’ve all been under stress for a long time and we’re in a damn spooky place. Then along come two big jolts—the news about the planet and a genuine alien from outer space no one can look at. You’ve seen the ship, Bruce, people are lighted up like Christmas. Hope is a terrible thing, it brings fear that the hope won’t be realized. Suppress the fear and it surfaces as symbol—and poor Tiger is our official disaster symbol, isn’t he? Talk about common factors, it’s a wonder we aren’t all seeing green space-boogies.”

Aaron is pleased to find he believes his own argument; it sounds very convincing. “Moreover, Tighe is linked with the alien now.”

“If you say so, Doc,” says Bruce lightly.

“Well, I do say so. I say there’s sufficient cause to account for the phenomena. Occam’s razor, the best explanation is that requiring fewer unsupported postulates, or whatever.”

Bruce chuckles. “You’re citing the law of parsimony, actually.” He jumps up, turns to examine a telescoping metal rod on Solange’s desk. “Don’t forget, Aaron, old William ended up proving god loves us. I shall continue to count.”

“Do that,” Aaron grins.

Bruce comes close, says softly to Aaron alone, “What would you say if I told you I also saw . . . Mei-Lin?”

Aaron looks up wordlessly. Bruce lays the rod diagonally across Aaron’s console. “I thought so,” he says dryly and goes out.

Solange comes over to take the rod, her face automatically tuned to the pity on his. Bruce hallucinating Mei-Lin? That fits, too. It doesn’t upset Aaron’s theory. “What’s this for, Soli?”

“The extension for the section cutter,” she tells him, striking a fencing pose. “It needs many wires, it will be a mess.”

“Oh, Soli—” Aaron finally gets his arms around her, where they begin to feel alive at last. “Smart and beautiful, beautiful and smart. You’re such a healthy person. What would I do without you?” He buries his unhealthy nose in her fragrant flesh.

“You would do your house calls,” she tells him tenderly, her hips delicious in his hands.

“Oh, god. Do I have to, now?”

“Yes, Aaron. Now. Think how it will be nice, afterward.”

Ruefully Aaron extricates himself, confirming the board’s estimate of his drives. Getting out his kit, he recalls another duty and stuffs two liter flasks into the kit while Solange checks her file.

“Bustamente number one,” she tells him. “I think he is very tense.”

“I wish to god we could get him in here for an EKG.”

“He will not come. You must do your best.” She ticks off two more people Aaron would have visited during his weeks in quarantine. “And your sister, h’mm?”

“Yeah.” Closing the kit, he wonders for the thousandth time if Solange knows about the flasks inside. And Coby? Christ, Coby has to know, he’d have been checking that distillation apparatus from Day One. Probably saving it for some blackmail scheme, who knows, Aaron thinks. Could I ever explain that I’m not doing what I damned him for? Or am I?