by Greg Bear
“Med unit,” she said softly.
“This device will summon,” the computer replied. The smooth jade-green ceiling had been equipped with tracks. Two medical units, cubes hanging from slender chrome poles, beeped behind her.
“Bring me down to relaxed and alert,” she said. “No impairment of CNS.” She stood and held an arm out to the nearest cube. The second cube advanced and flashed lights in her eyes. She felt a prick in the skin above her bicep. Her neck muscles loosened, and she was calm.
“Med unit suggests a brief training regimen to establish complete CNS control of emotional responses,” the computer said.
“Noted. How’s he doing with the lander?”
“It’s ready,” Oomalo said behind her.
“Then let’s go down.”
From outside, a view they hadn’t seen since being positioned for listening, the old Aighor ship looked like an asteroid carved from malachite. It was flattened, twice as long as it was wide, and featureless except for the bumps and gouges covering its surface. It had been through at least a dozen major battles in its prime, with countless wounds inflicted by unknown weapons, some large enough to have required rebuilding the ship in deep space. The repaired sections were detectable only where they obviously deviated from the original design of the ship.
The lander turned its thrust nodes against the orbital path and let loose a steady wash of rainbow light. The vessel shuddered and G-forces increased. They began to spiral in.
Pearls and dust, everything leeched of color. Ice-crystal clouds formed a thin haze at thirty kilometers. The lander punched through them and thrust again. It touched down half a kilometer from the dome. The surface under its engines cooled immediately. A quarter kilometer away, a few patches of snow liquefied, then turned to glassy ice.
They put on full suits before opening the hatch. A ramp flowed from the outer wall, and they walked down to the plain. Their radios whistled, and the voice of the station computer announced that two other ships had entered orbits around the planet.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” Oomalo said. “Send a record of our prior landing to Centrum Archive. To our employers send a note that we are accepting bids for data mining on this world. We are sole owners.”
They approached the dome. From this side there was no visible entrance. They marched around it. Oomalo kept his suit recorders on throughout the walk. On the dome’s north side they came across a door. It was round and three meters high. A black spiral in the middle wound to a red depression that was obviously meant to be touched. Oomalo pushed it with a gloved hand. The door vanished.
“It’s fast,” Alae said. “I barely saw it flash aside.” They entered. It was warmer inside, and the air was thicker, richer in oxygen and nitrogen. The door was closed behind them when they turned to look.
They were in a peristyle. Five meters above them a roof jutted from the inside of the dome. To either side it extended around the curve, making a circuit. They stepped from the roof’s shadow and stood under the nighttime sky, with stars and the outlines of clouds. Directly before them was a grassy hill dotted with broad, dark trees. Beyond the hill was a tower, multistoried and ornate, like several houses stacked atop each other. Climbing the hill, they came to a path, beside which stood a stone lantern with a cap which resembled the roof of the tower. A body lay on the path, pushed against the base of the lantern.
“It looks human,” Oomalo said, turning it faceup with the toe of his boot. A few seconds after he touched it, it crumbled into white powder. Only its clothing and armor remained. The armor was made of shiny black metal and beautifully decorated, like the carapace of an insect.
Alae bent to pick up a sword she’d stepped on. She held it out for Oomalo to examine. “These are human artifacts,” she said. She shined her suit lamp into the dark at the top of the hill. Something moved. “They’re not all dead,” she said. Oomalo nodded behind his faceplate, and they walked to the top.
From that vantage they could see that the dome was a terrarium, designed to mimic a terrestrial landscape. On the other side of the hill was a village, with buildings made of wood and a thin, translucent material, illuminated by spots of straw-colored light. Everything was silent and still.
Alae had never been to Earth, but she’d experienced enough tapes to know it like a native. “It’s summer here,” she said.
“Dead summer,” Oomalo added, coming across another body. He didn’t touch this one but bent over and shined his suit lamp into the face. “These were never alive. They must have been simulacra.” The hair had been pulled back on the scalp to form a short topknot. The clothing was voluminous and comfortable-looking. The eyes were closed and the face was peacefully composed, but the back of the head had already begun to powder from the body’s weight.
They walked around a stone wall until they came to a gate, which stood open. They entered the compound and approached the tower. A square doorway beckoned at the base of the imposing wooden structure. Oomalo stepped up to look inside.
A shadow jumped into the doorway with sword raised. Oomalo held up his arm and stepped back. They stood two paces apart. The figure wore a fierce metal mask. Oomalo stepped back again, and it advanced aggressively.
“Dare ni aitai n desu ka?” it said.
“What?” Alae asked.
“Dare?”
Oomalo held out one hand and reached up to draw aside his face plate. “We’re like you,” he said. He heard the voice of the station computer in Alae’s helmet, and hints of her whispered reply. Then she slid aside her own faceplate and held her hands out, palms up.
“Nippongo wa yoku dekimasen,” she said. “We don’t speak Japanese.”
The figure sagged and lowered its sword. In a flash it sheathed the blade, opened its helmet from the front, and removed it. “Forgive me,” the man said, bowing quickly. “I have been here a long time. Forgive me very much.”
Two
Alae put the portable environment pack on the ground beside the armored man and looked up at the descending point of light. Oomalo joined them, and the dome hatch shut swiftly behind. “Take him to our ship?” Alae asked.
“Let the others take care of him,” he said. “We have to establish our claim now.”
The armored man stared steadily at the ground and took a deep breath.
“You mean he has a claim?”
“That’s what it amounts to. He was here before us.”
“That’s insane.”
“This is going to be contested by everyone who sets foot here. We just keep silent and maybe things will work out for us. But we don’t dare touch him or we’ll be accused of—”
Even through the bubble of air around them, the sound of the landing craft drowned out his voice. Alae’s gray eyes looked over the armored man coldly.
“Let’s go, then,” she said. They resealed their suits and slipped out of the bubble.
The second shuttle’s engines had stopped. There was a mark on its side Oomalo didn’t recognize, though it bore a resemblance to the family crest of a man he had once free-lanced for—Traicom Nestor. Alae boarded their lander ahead of him. The ramp swung inboard just as another piercing whine cut through the thin atmosphere.
“What’s her registry?” Oomalo asked, going to the shuttle’s computers and calling up lists of symbols. Alae watched over his shoulder. “Anna Sigrid Nestor,” he said finally. “United Stars won’t be far behind. Finalists into the stretch.”
The second shuttle’s outer shields flickered off, and a ramp swung out from the base. Immediately a bubble of air poked down and nestled around the landing vanes. A crowd of humans in colorful costumes exited from the cargo lock. For a moment it looked like a circus had come to the Perfidisian planet. The passengers milled in the environment bubble, blinking in the washed-out light, adjusting their elegant capes and swirling ropes. The austere black and gray suits of
three androgynes stood out, along with the russet fur of several tecto alters. One last figure, a woman in an orange and red gown, watched from the top of the ramp, carrying her own environment pack.
The third ship landed in a copper halo of light.
The woman in orange and red nodded to someone behind her and stepped down into the crowd of twenty passengers. She left the bubble and began walking over the featureless pavement to the dome, skirting the Waunters’ lander.
The third ship dropped a ramp, and immediately a tall, well-muscled man with bright red hair ran out of lock. He was wearing the uniform of a United Stars loytnant. His environment trailed after him with some difficulty as he ran to catch up with the woman. Breathless, he merged his bubble with hers, and they walked on together.
She paid him no attention. “Heiress, have you riddled what I’ve riddled?” he asked nervously.
“No riddles,” she replied. “Plain as sky. I’m going to talk to the owner of this planet.” She was well formed but not exceptionally beautiful, not to his eyes at that moment, with a hard-edged, masculine face, large eyes, arched brows indicating amusement, narrow jaw, and a sensuous mouth.
“I’m Elvox,” the man said. “Julio Elvox, senior officer in charge of this landing.”
“Good for you,” the woman said.
“And I recognize you—you’re Anna Nestor.”
She nodded and arched one brow further, but still didn’t look at him. They were approaching the dome.
“We don’t know who he is,” Elvox said, indicating the man, “or where he came from.”
“Nor I. Shall we be careful and courteous?”
“What language does he speak?”
“I haven’t any idea. I’ve got a translator tapas with me. I suppose you do, too. If he speaks any terrestrial language, we’ll understand each other.”
“You’re sure he’s human?” Elvox asked.
Anna Nestor gave him an amused, ironic smile, looking him over for the first time with a single up-and-down scan. She nodded to herself as if making a note. “You’re only a loytnant,” she said.
Elvox opened his mouth to reply but nothing came out.
The armored man watched without apparent interest as they approached him. “Careful,” Elvox said. “He’s wearing a sword and another knife.” The armor was dented as if it had seen combat. The three environment bubbles merged, and Anna stopped a few paces in front of the man.
“Hello,” she greeted him casually. He turned his forlorn face toward her and blinked, but said nothing. He looked very young, perhaps twenty-five—a few years younger than Nestor or Elvox. His skin was light brown and his eyes were black, with epicanthic folds, which marked him as a fairly pure Oriental. Racial purity wasn’t unheard of on human worlds, but it was rare enough for remark. “How long have you been here?” He didn’t answer. He seemed lost in some inner tragedy.
Anna looked his costume over.
“If that’s an example of Perfidisian daily wear—assuming he’s been held prisoner or under study—they must be pretty limited in their technology,” Elvox said.
“It’s beautiful,” Anna said. “He’s no native.”
“Then they captured him,” Elvox said.
Nestor looked at the loytnant as if he wasn’t entirely useless. “When?”
“A long time ago. Perhaps a thousand years.”
“Where did they catch him?”
“Earth.” The full implications hit them both at once.
“If you’re right, he’s the oldest living human,” Anna said. “He’s valuable regardless of this planet. Say something to us,” she addressed the armored man, pretending to drag words from her mouth with a hand.
“My name is Kawashita Yoshio,” he said. His English was doubly accented, by time and by the fact that it wasn’t his native tongue, which made him hard to understand. Nestor’s translator tapas went to work and described his nationality and time period.
“He’s Japanese,” she read from the display. “Twentieth century.”
“His clothes put me off five hundred years,” Elvox said.
“Yes, Japanese,” the man affirmed. “For you, my first name is Yoshio, my family name Kawashita.”
“When were you born?” Elvox asked.
“Christian year one thousand nine hundred and eighteen.”
“When were you captured?” Nestor asked.
“Christian year one thousand nine hundred and forty-two.”
“Where?”
He shook his head and glanced between them, then looked down at his feet. “Forgive me, do not wish to offend, but I have many things of asking, perhaps will trade, point for point, neh?”
“Fair enough,” Nestor said. “You’ll have to understand the situation clearly before you make any commitments.” She pressed her tapas and the device translated her speech into Japanese. “You’re very important now. Many people will want to talk to you.”
“Why?” he asked. “I have lost.”
“By no means,” Nestor said. “You’re very lucky. You probably own this planet now.”
“He may not know what that means,” Elvox said.
“I am not ignorant,” Yoshio said defensively. “I was let to read, many years.”
“It means that for a time you were the only being on this world. That probably makes you the owner.”
“Cannot own all this,” Yoshio said. “They own it.”
“They’re gone.” Nestor swept her arms around the empty prairies of concrete. “They took everything but you and your habitat.”
“I am desolate,” Yoshio said, hanging his head. “I have lost.”
Nestor and Elvox looked at each other with obvious questions. The man was unable to fend for himself. Who would be his adviser and guardian?
“There’s not much you can objectively do for Yoshio Kawashita,” she said in a formal tone. “You represent a consolidation with concerns of its own.”
“And you don’t?” Elvox said, indignant.
“I didn’t say that. I’m just excusing myself if I look after his interests before you do.” She extended her bubble to encompass Yoshio’s, picked up the portable environment pack the Waunters had left near him, and grasped his arm gently. “Come with me.” He did as he was told. Their environments broke away from Elvox’s with an audible pop. Elvox frowned, seeing his promotion march away after them.
Three
Kawashita looked over the lander’s interior without much surprise. It was more precisely fashioned, with fewer jutting pipes and beams, but essentially it was little different from the inner spaces of the Hiryu. He wasn’t very clear on what the ship did, but it was obviously a ship.
As for the woman who escorted him, she behaved like a man, and that in itself told him things were different here. The varieties of people in the entourage, now waiting in the ship’s small cargo area, meant little to him, so he ignored them—all except one who was covered with fur. He felt a tingle go up his back as if he’d seen a demon.
“My name is Anna Sigrid Nestor,” the woman told him. “You’re in a landing vehicle which will take us up to a larger ship in a few days. If you don’t want to be here, if you don’t want to go with us, tell me now and we’ll put you back on the field or in your dome.”
Kawashita thought that over for a few seconds. “No,” he said. “I’ve been there too long.”
“I’ll say,” Nestor sighed. “Four hundred years.”
“Many lifetimes. I was many things there, learned many things.”
“We’ll also need your permission to record everything we do with you. We don’t want to be accused of kidnapping or anything illegal.”
“How…record?”
She held up the tapas pad. “Everything we do and say is kept in the pad’s memory, and temporarily in the lander’s computer, too. I imagine all
this is unfamiliar to you.”
“I was let to read,” Kawashita said.
“Do we have your permission?”
“To record, yes,” he said.
“Would you like to rest, change clothes?”
He held up his arms and let them drop. Metal and heavy cloth shuffled together. “Show me clothes.”
She motioned for the entourage to stay back and took him to a private cabin. “You can take your pick of any of these outfits. Some are designed to snug-fit once they’re worn, but they aren’t the best-looking in the lot.” He looked through the small closet and felt for supports above the clothing. They were floating free. He didn’t remark on it. Instead, he sadly and deliberately picked out a gray and green robe with baggy pants and a belt. It was something he could get used to. Many of the others were rather disturbing.
“Well.” Nestor sighed again. “Congratulations. You’ve picked one that’ll snug fit. I imagine you’re modest, so you can dress in here”—she pointed to a separate bathroom—“while I wait outside.”
“I’m not so modest,” Kawashita said. “But wait outside anyway.”
“Of course. Where did you learn English?”
“I was let to read.”
“Of course.” She smiled and backed out, the door sliding shut behind her.
It was pleasant to be alone, even in a strange place. He’d almost become used to living alone—except for Ko, of course. He put the costume down on a bunk and looked at the cabin and the bathroom. He could learn much from simple fixtures, if he only knew how to interpret them. Some might be dangerous. Some might look innocuous but be very important. While he removed his armor and clothing, he whistled tunelessly. He put his bearskin shoes together next to the bunk, then removed the gauntlets from his arms. The lacquered plates rattled against each other as he arranged them on a chair. With some difficulty he reached behind himself to undo the cords and remove his breastplate. He slipped off his hitatare, which in the rush to get suited he had stolen from the body of a low-ranking samurai. Some white powder filtered from the shoulders.