by Nancy Kress
“Why didn’t it?” Peres demanded.
“The observer—that’s the skeeter—kept the firing beam as a wave. It altered the phase to a complexity that doesn’t interact with ordinary matter. So the beam went through the skeeter. In terms of the necessary observer, the skeeter chose not to observe the beam and so not to resolve its duality.”
“‘Chose not to observe it?’” the exec said. “What the hell does that mean?”
Syree looked at her. If this were her command, Puchalla would not get away with that tone. “Just what I said. Chose not to observe it. By altering the phase of the wave aspect to high complexity, the firing beam became unreal for ordinary matter.”
“Unreal?” Sloane said, although he should not have spoken unless addressed by an officer.
“Yes, Mr. Sloane. Unreal. Not in our reality.”
The gunner laughed. The harsh, hysterical sound seemed to echo in the silence on the bridge. Peres said, “Mr. Sloane, you are relieved of duty. Ms. Puchalla, summon Mr. Sloane’s replacement to the bridge. Dr. Johnson, do you have any idea whether this Faller ability to alter the wave phase of the firing beam can be used as an offensive weapon?”
“No way I can see,” Syree said. “But if they can do this, it’s not possible to predict what else they can or can’t do.”
Peres stared at the display. “I understand.” The skeeter sped toward them across the star system’s inner space.
The Zeus fired on the skeeter five times more over the next two days, gauging the effect of distance on the Faller wave-phase alterer. The clumsy name was Peres’s; it seemed as much as he could, or would, grasp of the physics behind the Faller defenses. None of the five firings affected the skeeter at all. Nor did it fire back at the Zeus.
That scared Syree more than the alterer itself.
Clearly the Fallers were not interested in engaging the Zeus. The odds would have been against them, but usually Faller ships, even skeeters, fired anyway. Not this one. So why had they come?
The only other thing of possible interest to the enemy in this remote, primitive system had to be Orbital Object #7.
As the hours scraped past, grating everyone’s nerves, Syree became more sure. The skeeter flew past the Zeus and kept on going. The Zeus turned and pursued, helplessly, unable to stop the Fallers but only to trail behind and see what they did. Observers themselves, now.
“Dr. Johnson?”
“The orbital calculations are clear enough,” Syree said. “They’re doing a fly-by of the inhabited planet. Data-gathering. No point to that unless they suspected there was something interesting enough to gather data about.”
The project team met in Peres’s quarters. Peres, Canton Lee, John Ombatu, Lucy Wu. Peres had included his two ranking officers as well, Puchalla and Kertesz. The artifact mission had always been on a need-to-know basis; evidently Peres had decided his exec and third officer needed to know. Syree briefed the two, who looked grim at having not been told sooner.
They also, like everyone else, looked like hell. Unshaven and, from the smell in the cabin, largely unwashed. Ship’s time was twenty-two hours. Everybody had stopped following normal day-night routines. The lights didn’t dim, and battle stations were maintained constantly. The officers slept in snatches and woke already grabbing for their clothes, afraid they’d missed something in the few hours of fitful sleep. All this tension, and nothing actually happened. The skeeter flew toward World, the Zeus trailed behind. The inactivity made it all worse.
Syree had boosted her daily neuropharm mixture for greater serotonin, balolin, and substance J. But she didn’t dare up the dopamine or fight-and-flight complex until there was something to actually do. Too rich a mixture too soon would just burn the body out. She assumed the others were doing the same.
Peres said to her, “What, in your opinion, can the Fallies do to the artifact?”
Syree picked up the printouts of her calculations, even though they’d make no sense to anybody but her. “They can fire on it, of course. A proton beam would probably vaporize the artifact. Probably. Or they can just observe it, gathering whatever data they can. Other than that, I don’t see what the enemy can do to the object.”
She didn’t add, After all, we couldn’t do anything to it, and we’ve had months. Everyone was hyperaware of that already.
Lee shifted on his chair. “Colonel, we once worked out that the Zeus could tow the artifact toward the space tunnel. Could the skeeter tow it?”
Syree had thought of that. “I don’t think so, Canton. We haven’t ever had the chance to reverse-engineer a skeeter, of course. But the best I can do with the equations says that the skeeter can’t stop without impairing the effect of their wave-phase alterer. Not only does the firing beam have to be moving for the defense to be effective, but the skeeter has to have a certain minimum velocity as well. They’re barely above it now.”
Peres said, “But they’re already out of our firing range. If they reach the artifact and stop long enough to secure the artifact, all the Fallers would have to worry about is automatic guns in orbit. And we already know they can detect and destroy everything we have in that line.”
“Yes,” Syree said. She felt light-headed. How long since she’d eaten anything? Better eat soon. “But the equations say that yanking the artifact out of orbit and then getting back up to sufficient velocity would slow them down so much that the Zeus would get within firing range before they left World.”
“So they can’t tow the artifact,” Puchalla said.
“If your equations are right,” Peres said.
Syree agreed. “If my equations are right.”
“And even if they did tow it,” argued Syree’s assistant John Ombatu, “what good would it do them? We know the artifact’s mass is too high to go through the tunnel. And we’ve been trying and trying to separate it into components ourselves, and nothing’s worked. So why should they be able to do that?”
“Why should they be able to make a wave-phase alterer?” Peres said. “Christ, I’m tired. So where are we?”
No one answered. They knew where they were: trailing an enemy skeeter like debris behind a comet. Trailing and waiting. In another few days they still wouldn’t have done anything useful, most likely, but at least they’d have some answers to useful questions. Such as: Were the Fallers merely going to look at the artifact, confirming the existence of the second known object from the race that had established the space tunnels? Were the Fallers going to blow it up? Were the Fallers, perhaps, going to blow up the Zeus by means of yet more unsuspected technology? Blow up the planet?
“There’s something else that has to be said.” Peres looked as if he knew they had already thought of this, which of course they had. “Anything else could come through the space tunnel at any time. Faller battleships, whatever. Just because it’s been a few days and nothing’s appeared, doesn’t mean anything won’t.”
One by one, the people crammed into the tiny, malodorous room nodded.
“Anything else?” Peres said. “No? Okay, then now we wait. Deb, you’ve got the conn.”
Puchalla nodded. Syree stood to leave, steadying herself on her right leg. She was going to grab a few hours’ sleep. Or at least try to.
The hardest thing, always, was to do nothing.
Six hours later, the skeeter changed course. Without slowing down, it made a close swoop past Orbital Object #7. Syree and her project team, plus Peres and his battle team, crowded the bridge of the Zeus to watch the skeeter’s graceful fly-by. It never slowed. The skeeter then took off back toward the space tunnel, with whatever data it had taken, to lead to whatever action the Faller high command chose next.
“All right,” Peres said, after a long, long silence. “Now we know what they’re after.”
THIRTEEN
GOFKIT JEMLOE
Enli rode back to Gofkit Jemloe feeling better than she had in a ten of tendays. How sweet had been the sleep in Pek Nagredil’s office! Wrapped in the warmth of shared reali
ty with the high priest of the First Flower, Enli had slept for hours. When she awoke, it was dark outside, yet Pek Nagredil was still there.
“Let the flowers of your heart be still, Pek Brimmidin,” he had said quietly. “A message has been sent to Gofkit Jemloe. The Voratur household will not expect you until tomorrow.”
“But—”
“Let your flowers rest quietly. Here, this soup is still hot.”
She hadn’t expected to feel so hungry. Greedily she slurped all the soup. Pek Nagredil silently refilled her bowl, and she ate all of that, too. He poured her a glass of pel, moving around the gloomy office lit only by the moonlight streaming through the arched windows. There were few oil lamps in Rafkit Seloe. No one worked in the capital city after dark.
“Have you eaten enough?”
“Yes. Thank you, Pek Nagredil.”
He pulled a pillow close to hers, his back to the window. He was a dark silhouette in a halo of graying neckfur, a middle-aged middle official who had not had, nor taken, time to decently comb his fur.
“Enli, I would ask you some questions.”
He had never called her by her child-name before.
“The servant of the First Flower could not stay. Reality and Atonement meets tonight to discuss the Terrans, as I’m sure you surmised. But our priest is very concerned about you. The job of informant is supposed to allow the unreal to earn back their souls by service to shared reality. It is not supposed to destroy the soul itself. Now look at you. You are so thin. You jump at noises. Your eyes water at questions. You fall asleep here as if into death. So I must ask you, Enli. Is being informant to the Terrans too much for your soul?”
“I—”
Pek Nagredil held up his hand. “Wait. If it is, I can excuse you, on word of the servant of the First Flower. Another job of informant can be found for you to finish your atonement. You already know, of course, that we have other informants in the Voratur household, watching the Terrans. Two of them, now. Neither is placed as you are, working so closely with Pek Sikorski. Neither can provide us with as much information as you can. But if the price is to destroy you, the price is too large. So you must choose, Enli. Do you wish a different informant job?”
Enli swallowed the rest of the pel in her cup. Its warmth spread through her body. To get away from the horrible headpain of the Voratur household … But this was her job. Her atonement. She was doing it for Tabor, so that he might be set free to join their ancestors. Set free with the same joy as the woman who died from antihistamines had been sped toward her ancestors. That was the reality she shared now with Tabor.
And with Pek Nagredil.
And with the servant of the First Flower who had been so kind to her.
And even with the Terrans. After what she herself had reported about taking shared reality out of the skulls of Worlders and putting them with wires into Terrans … even now she flinched, thinking of it. After that report, undoubtedly the Terrans would be found unreal. But they hadn’t been yet. That was reality, and she shared it with the peculiar aliens. Enli might have heard the Terrans wrong, the priest had said. And perhaps she had. Pek Sikorski, so kind to her always …
She said to Pek Nagredil, “I will stay in the Voratur household, informing on the Terrains.”
Pek Nagredil nodded. He had expected that answer, of course. They shared the reality of the situation.
“You may sleep here tonight, Pek Brimmidin.”
“May your flowers bloom throughout the night.”
“May your flowers bloom throughout the night.”
Pek Nagredil left, mounting his bicycle and pedaling down the deserted streets of Rafkit Seloe. Enli, to her own surprise, had returned to sleep almost immediately, despite the long refreshing sleep she’d already had. At dawn she pedaled out of the capital, washed herself in a cool pond, and ate breakfast at a travelers’ house.
Now she rode by fields of crops in various stages of growth or harvest, each field bordered by its patron wildflower. The sun rose steadily, and Enli watched with pleasure as the livelier flowers turned their faces to follow the warm red ball in the clear sky. At the gates of the Voratur household, she dismounted and wheeled her bicycle directly to Pek Sikorski’s rooms.
“Enli. I missed you this morning,” Pek Sikorski said, in Terran. “You’re looking very well.”
“The soil is rich today, Pek Sikorski. May your flowers bloom.” Enli spoke World; she wasn’t sure why.
“May your flowers bloom,” Pek Sikorski said, in World. She did not look as if her soil were rich today. Her peculiar headfur was uncombed and her tunic soiled. The lab benches were covered with the Terran machines, out of their ugly square boxes, and with bits of the various plants and animals that Pek Sikorski put into them.
“Can I help plant your soil?”
Pek Sikorski smiled. “Thank you, Enli. But neither of us can plant this soil, I’m afraid. There’s a big piece of information missing.”
Enli suddenly knew that Pek Sikorski was talking about Pek Voratur’s brain picture. About taking pieces of Pek Voratur’s shared reality out of his skull and …
Enli’s head began to hurt. She had taken no government pills this morning; for the first time since coming to the Voratur household, she hadn’t needed them. It had felt so good not to need them. But now the horror was sliding back into her skull, the unthinkable violation of shared reality that the Terrans contemplated … if they did in fact contemplate it …
She had to know. Now. While she was feeling strong again, feeling her real self again, before she could again be laid low by the disjoints with shared reality that the Terrans scattered around them like pollen, wherever they went.
“Pek Sikorski,” Enli said, and now she had switched to Terran, because there must be no mistaken meaning this time. “Pek Sikorski, will you take parts of Pek Voratur’s shared reality out of his skull and put it inside a Terran skull?”
Pek Sikorski turned, her face astonished. “Do what?”
Enli repeated it slowly and carefully. She no longer cared if she revealed how good her Terran really was. “Will you take parts of Pek Voratur’s shared reality out of his skull and put it inside a Terran skull? With hard wires?”
“Hard wires … oh, my God. ‘Hard-wired.’”
Pek Sikorski’s mouth made a round red O. Her eyes, that strange pale noncolor, went almost as round. The two women stared at each other across the lab bench crowded with alien machinery and World greenery.
“Enli … what did you hear? What do you think it means?”
Enli didn’t know how to answer. All she could do was repeat the question a third time. “Will you take parts of Pek Voratur’s shared reality out of his skull? To put it inside a Terran skull?”
“No! My God, no! Listen, Enli, we aren’t going to harm any Worlder. We aren’t going to take anything out of any Worlder skull. What you heard was a crazy idea of Pek Allen’s to try to make Terran babies have—”
She stopped. Have what? Enli wondered. Shared reality? But that would mean they didn’t have it now.
“Have many different bits closer to Worlders’ when they’re born,” Pek Sikorski said firmly. “That’s what ‘hard-wired’ means. For instance, you are ‘hard-wired’ to have neckfur, and we are not.”
Neckfur. The Terrans only wanted to acquire neckfur. And why not? They must know how ugly they looked without it.
“Neckfur,” Enli said, and so much joy was rising in her, nectar in the flowers of her heart, that she scarcely noticed Pek Sikorski look away. Neckfur!
“And other hard-wired qualities,” Pek Sikorski said, in a muffled voice. “But Enli—when did your English become so good?”
Again the two women stared at each other. After a long moment, Pek Sikorski smiled sadly. “It seems there’s much we don’t know about each other.”
“But we share reality!” Enli blurted out. She couldn’t help herself. It must be real!
“Oh, yes,” Pek Sikorski said, and now there were Terran s
hades in her voice that Enli did not understand. “We certainly do occupy the same reality.”
It was an odd way of putting it, even in Terran. And Pek Sikorski looked at her oddly, too: intently, as if she knew that Enli was not sharing all of her own reality.
Which, of course, she wasn’t.
The headpain suddenly stabbed Enli so hard she cried out. The room blurred. This was what she got for not taking the pills … Enli put her hands over her eyes. The light, the light, it hurt so …
“What is it? Enli?” Pek Sikorski’s hands on her, cool and concerned, helping her sit down.
Enli shoved the hands away. Fumbling in her pocket, she finally found the pills and pushed a handful of them into her mouth. Bit by bit the room reappeared around her as the headache receded reluctantly, a beast withdrawn temporarily into the shadows.
Pek Sikorski reappeared as well, a rumpled woman sitting beside her on the polished floor, holding Enli’s hand.
“All right, Enli,” Pek Sikorski said softly. “Tell me what that attack was.”
Enli only shook her head. The motion hurt.
“It happened when I said, ‘We certainly do occupy the same reality.’ Because you know we don’t. That was an unshared-reality attack inside your brain, the largest I’ve ever seen. Enli, who are you?”
The beast drew out from the shadows. Enli’s hand closed on more pills.
“What do those pills do? Enli? My God—they damp down the headaches. So you can tolerate not sharing reality. But Worlders believe … Enli, who are you?”
Enli swallowed two more pills. How many was that? She mustn’t take any more, it was too dangerous.
“I’m making it worse, aren’t I? I’m sorry, Enli. Don’t talk if you don’t want to.”
Pek Sikorski put her arms around Enli. Enli, startled, jerked away, but the motion made the beast lunge, jaws open. Slowly, moving as carefully as if her head were blown glass, Enli leaned against Pek Sikorski. The Terran arms felt so warm, so strong. No one had touched Enli since Tabor’s death.