Nancy Kress (16 page)

And then, at a shout, “Pam? Are you there? I need you!”

“Lillie?” Pam’s voice came, from nowhere and everywhere. It gave Lillie the creeps.

“Yes, it’s Lillie. I — “

“What has happened? Why aren’t you asleep?” Pam’s voice held genuine astonishment. Did she and Pete always sleep on an exact schedule, then? No, they’d once told the kids that they didn’t sleep at all. But obviously they thought the kids did, every night all night. “I have to talk to you,” Lillie said, feeling suddenly ridiculous. But the panic was still there, underneath, and she really didn’t think she could go through the rest of the night without easing the roiling inside her. “I’m coming,” Pam said. “Wait.”

Lillie shivered, even though the garden was no cooler at “night” than during the “day.” The thick grass tickled the soles of her bare feet. Something came toward her, moving fast, and Lillie almost screamed. But then she saw that it was just the lawn-care robot that fascinated Rafe so much, moving much faster than its slow steady pace during the day. It swerved to avoid her. Water, or something like water, sprayed from it onto the grass.

Then Pam was there, hurrying from behind a clump of trees, from a place where Lillie had never seen any kind of door. “Lillie! What has happened? How could you be here?”

What a strange way to put it, Lillie thought. “Pam, I have to ask you a question. Mike and I … I mean, Madison gave me one of those pills you gave her. The green birth control pills. But I didn’t take it, and then Mike and I… we had sex.” She felt the fiery color sweep her neck and face. “And I took the pill, but not until much later and so I need to know … I was wondering … will it still protect me? I can’t get pregnant, can I?”

Pam peered at her. Lillie had the sudden impression that Pam was thinking furiously, but Lillie couldn’t imagine what.

“No,” Pam finally said, “the pill still works, even if you took it later, after sex. You’re protected.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Pam said, and now her voice was gentle, compassionate. She took Lillie’s hand. Lillie didn’t like that, but it would be rude to say so, after she’d dragged Pam out of bed for a stupid question.

“Lillie, sit down a minute,” Pam said.

“The grass is wet.”

“Yes. Come to the chairs.”

She led Lillie to the cafe. Lillie didn’t really want to chat, but what choice was there? She didn’t want to be rude. She sat, barely able to make out Pam’s face across the table.

“Lillie, I want to tell you something about myself,” Pam said. “From the time I was young, I felt this desire for the whole universe to form a coherent algorithm, to have a first premise. I think you would say, ‘to make sense.’”

Lillie started.

“I think, after watching you, that you want that, too.”

How could Pam know that?
Did
she spy? But Lillie did not have conversations like that with the other girls! Just that one with Elizabeth, but that was so long ago …

She said slowly, “You smelled that from me.”

Silence. Then Pam said, “Yes. You are very intelligent, Lillie.”

“You can … you and Pete … do you know what everyone is
thinking?
Just from our pheromones?” She’d learned the word in class. Outrage was gathering in her.

“Oh, no,” Pam said. “Pheromones tell of emotions, but not thoughts. The sensory molecules that convey images and reasoning … you know you can only receive those, not send them.”

Which meant Pam and Pete could send them. Of course. They “talked” to each other right in the middle of the Earth kids, and no one else even knew they were communicating. It must be like hearing people talking to each other among a bunch of the deaf.

She said, “But if you can’t read my thoughts, how do you know I want… what you said? For life to mean something.”

“It’s hard to answer that,” Pam said thoughtfully. “It’s partly the … taste of your pheromones, combined with which times you answer me or Pete or your friends and the times you don’t … Lillie, I am human, after all. Our culture is much more advanced than yours, much farther along the right way, but not fundamentally different. Five million years ago, we shared ancestors here on Earth.”

“We did?” The pribir had never said that before! “Yes. We were taken, carried out into space, our evolution accelerated—”

“How? By who?”

“We don’t know,” Pam said. “Not any more. Maybe the memories were deliberately buried. Anyway, we were evolved, and taught, and now there are many of us in many forms, spreading ourselves throughout the galaxy. We bring the right way. That’s our purpose. It permeates everything we do, and it gives our lives the kind of meaning you’re talking about. I do understand what you long for, Lillie. It’s the quintessential human longing: to matter to the universe. To believe the universe has a design and you’re part of it.”

Yes. Lillie couldn’t breathe.

“We know that we are part of a magnificent design,” Pam continued. “If we didn’t have that, we would disintegrate. We don’t need to strive for anything, not food or travel or health or anything. The right way provides it all. If we didn’t have the right way to strive for, we would be empty. Purposeless. We might do what some other species have done, destroy themselves out of sheer pointlessness. Do you understand what I’m saying, Lillie?”

The odd thing was, Lillie did. No one else she had ever known had thoughts like these. The religious people believed God had a design for them, but Lillie could find no evidence to believe in God. Her mother’s crazy beliefs had ensured that. The non-religious people just wanted to have a good time, or make a lot of money, or look good, or maybe raise their kids. Then the kids would grow up to raise theirs, on and on, but without any
point.

She said shakily, “I think I understand.”

“I think you do, too. That’s why I told you. I feel very close to you, Lillie. I think in many ways we’re very alike.”

But that was too much. Pam was a pribir, she came from another planet or ship or something, she whizzed around the galaxy teaching genetics, she smelled what her husband was thinking … Pam and Lillie were not alike. Abruptly Lillie stood. She couldn’t have said why, but she could not stay sitting down any longer.

“I know,” came Pam’s voice in the gloom, “it’s a strange thought. We’re also very different, too. I’m not minimizing that. But I’m glad we talked, Lillie.”

And then Lillie was glad, too. In a complete reversal of her precious sudden revulsion, she saw that Pam was wonderful. That Pam understood her as no one else ever had, that Pam had entrusted her with a great idea which made an unbreakable bond between them. Pam was what Lillie wanted to grow up to be, wise and compassionate and centered in herself, and Pam even smelled wonderful, a sudden rush of scent that intoxicated Lillie …

“You better go back to your room now, Lillie,” Pam said gently.

“Yes. But I … you …”

“Go back to your room,” Pam said, and Lillie went joyfully, making her way through the utter darkness of the common room to the corridor, to her door, to her bed, where she was seized with a tremendous unstoppable desire for sleep.

In the morning, however, she remembered the entire conversation. She thought about it often, while splicing genes and receiving codon images and walking with Madison and Sajelle. Not while having sex with Mike, though. That remained an undivided experience, consuming her, leaving no room for hesitation or reflection or anything else but itself.

Some days later, Lillie woke feeling ill. At first she didn’t even recognize the feeling; she hadn’t been sick since coming aboard the
Flyer.
But now her throat felt scratchy and sore and her head ached. She put her fingers to the sides of her neck, as her mother had done so long ago whenever Lillie complained of sickness. The glands in her throat felt swollen and sore.

Mike had already left her bed, probably for the showers. Lillie hadn’t heard him go. She swung her feet off the bed and felt the motion ricochet around in her head.

All at once she wanted Uncle Keith, unthought of for … how long?

“Lillie? You coming to breakfast?” Sajelle stuck her head in the door. “Mike asking for you.”

“I don’t… feel so good.”

Sajelle came into the room. “Oh, girl, you don’t look so good. You going to hurl?”

“No. I-“

“I’m getting Pam. Lay right there, baby.”

Pam hurried in ahead of Sajelle and Madison. Emily peered from the hallway. It was becoming a parade, Lillie thought irritably, and it seemed even the irritation hurt her head.

Suddenly all she wanted was to go home.

Pam’s eyes gleamed. “How interesting! Lillie, you must have a … I don’t know the word in English.”

“A what?” Sajelle demanded. “She got something dangerous?” Madison took a step back from the bed.

“No, no, of course not,” Pam said. “You can’t get sick on ship. Lillie must have a virus she brought with her, of the kind that can stay dormant inside cells for years and then suddenly go active. But we can deal with that.”

“How?” demanded Sajelle, ever practical.

“We’ll need to take her into our … our hospital. Lillie, we’ll give you anesthetic, all right? Nothing will hurt. We’ll just fix you up good.” Pam was proud of the slang she was learning from them.

“Drugs?” Lillie managed to get out. Her head had never ached like this before. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t help. Very rarely had Lillie gotten sick at all, and then she always threw it off quickly.
Good immune system,
Uncle Keith always said.

Uncle Keith …

When she opened her eyes, a second bed floated beside hers, and the room was full of people.

“Maglev!” Rafe said, ducking to crawl underneath the floating platform. “Has to be! The floor has superconductors woven into it, right, Pam?”

“Get out from there, Rafe,” Pete said. “The floater isn’t important. It’s not the right way, just a necessary machine. Just relax, Lillie.”

“Mike?”

“He’s still at breakfast,” Madison said. “You want me to go get him?”

Answering was too much effort. Pete easily lifted Lillie from her bed to the platform. Somewhere behind her headache and wheezy breathing, Lillie was glad she was dressed. The platform floated out of the room, Pam and Pete on either side, the others trailing behind in concern or excitement.

“Go eat breakfast,” Pam told them irritably.

“Do we still have school?” somebody called.

‘Yes! Of course!”

The platform floated Lillie through commons, through the garden, to a far wall. Lillie made herself turn her head to look. The wall was closed seamless metal … until Pam touched it. It began to open.

Pam said something sharply to Pete in a language Lillie had never heard. He answered impatiently, “Not outside here!” Lillie floated through the wall.

She scanned everything, ignoring pain, knowing she would have only a few seconds. Sure enough, the drowsiness struck and she was asleep.

But not before she’d seen a totally alien place, and a monster flowing toward her.

She woke in her own room, Sajelle and Pam beside her. She felt wonderful.

“Hey, baby, you awake?” Sajelle said fondly.

“Yes.” Lillie sat up. There was no weakness, no grogginess. She felt she could run a marathon. “What was it?”

“A virus,” Pam said warmly. “Acquired, latent until now. We haven’t seen it before. We added it to the genetics library.”

“You’re a library all by yourself,” Sajelle said, grinning.

Madison breezed into the room with a huge bunch of yellow and pink flowers. “Lillie! You were right, Pam, she woke up just when you said. These are for you, fresh from the garden.”

Lillie took the flowers. They smelled incredibly sweet.

“Mixed the genes myself,” Madison said proudly.

Rafe and Jason entered hesitantly. Pam, Lillie noticed, scowled briefly at Rafe, then replaced the scowl with a pleasant smile. Jason said, “The princess awakes!” He made a low sweeping caricature of a bow.

Rafe said, “You okay, Lillie?”

“I’m fine.” She swung her feet off the bed. Her body felt bursting with health. “Where’s Mike?” Suddenly nobody looked at her.

A tiny cold chill hit Lillie’s spine. “Where’s Mike? Is he sick, too? Did I give him my disease?”