Stranger Suns

by George Zebrowski

  “Don't bother.”

  * * *

  Juan approached the shuttle bay with caution; the variant shuttle keeper was also likely to be a dangerous man. Juan reminded himself that this was not the man who had killed Lena, even though the criminal personality would be the same. The two men up in the winding passage had been the same. They had confirmed that Lena, Malachi, and Magnus had come through a week earlier.

  He came out of the passage into the bay. The cradle was empty. As he waited for the craft to return, he peered into the exit and entry tube behind the large bowl of the cradle. A soft whine came from the tunnel. The shuttle rolled in. He watched closely and saw that it did not touch the passage. It drifted into the cradle, and rotated a half turn. He tensed as the lock opened and the keeper came out.

  “You're alone?” the unshaven man asked; his hair was grayer this time.

  “I'm Dr. Obrion. You took three of my colleagues down.”

  “A pretty woman like that,” the man said, “coming here with a nigger and a grandfather. What's it all about? You're not her type either.”

  Juan went past him into the lock, and hurried around the passage into the drum-shaped chamber. He was sweating as he dropped his pack and sat down on it. The keeper came in behind him and squatted down near the exit. Juan tried to ignore him.

  “So you have it for her, eh? We don't see many lookers here.”

  Juan asked, “Where's the overhead view?”

  “It's slow sometimes.”

  Suddenly the chamber filled with amber light. The view-space blinked on. The station was receding in the gray otherness. Juan watched the bright exit close in the black globe.

  “Is she good?” the keeper asked. “I would have asked her if she'd been alone.”

  Juan grasped the gun in his pocket as the shuttle switched into normal space and sunlight flooded the chamber. The man was a variant of the same rotten character, he told himself, trembling with indecision, but still likely to commit the same crimes; by killing him now, he might save another victim, even a variant of Lena. The man's innocence of her murder was only a feeble technicality.

  “Why are you here?” the keeper asked.

  “To meet my friends.” He didn't need to reason about this; hadn't he always claimed that rationality was powerless against human nature? The woman he had loved was dead. Shooting this man might ease his pain, and no one would hold him responsible. He saw himself returning endlessly to kill the shuttle keeper's variants, and held back.

  “But they went back yesterday,” the man said.

  “What?”

  The keeper nodded. “Guess the guards didn't bother to tell you.”

  “I'll check anyway,” Juan said, even though he knew the man had no reason to lie. The previous variant had not carried over when he had stepped through the frame. The convict shifted his weight and looked away. Juan clutched his weapon and waited for the man to say or do something that would make it easy to kill him.

  39. YIELDING

  As he neared Tasarov's dome, Juan told himself that the variants of his parents had been all too familiar, and oddly bearable. Finding another Magnus had been something of a relief; but how would he feel toward another Lena? The woman he had known was dead, but she would still be herself, because she would know everything they had shared, except those final moments before the keeper had broken her neck. That Lena was irrevocably lost, but the difference amounted to only a few memories. He and she would meet for the first time, even though they had known each other for years. The gulf between them would be both trivial and significant, but what could it ever mean if he loved her?

  He came to the tree where she and Magnus were buried, in different variants. His feelings twisted as he turned away, and he knew that the cruel knot within him could not be untied.

  He went slowly to Tasarov's dome. There was no one outside when he came to the entrance. It glowed—

  —and he stepped into a yellow space filled with the stench of human beings.

  “Another one!” a voice shouted as figures gathered around him.

  “I'm Juan Obrion,” he said.

  “If you're looking for the other three, they've gone,” a man answered. Juan recognized him as the one who had clubbed him.

  “How long ago?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Take me to Tasarov.”

  Juan followed him through the sprawling throng to Tasarov's partitioned area. The big Russian got up from a chair and said, “They told me you might come. I can only repeat what I told them—I did no such work, and I won't go back with you.” He held out his hand.

  Juan shook it. “Your variant said as much to me.”

  Tasarov nodded. “Dr. Rassmussen explained. It will give me something new to think about.” He smiled. “How did you and I get on during our first meeting?”

  “One of your men clubbed me. The shuttle keeper killed Lena Dravic.”

  Tasarov took a deep breath. “I'm sorry to hear it. We must watch him. He's not one of us.”

  “You killed him for me,” Juan said.

  Tasarov grimaced. “What will you do now?”

  “Go back. Is there anything else you wish to copy?”

  “No. Your friends had everything. You don't have anything special in your pack, do you?”

  “I don't think so. Do you still refuse my weapon?”

  Tasarov nodded. “One of our more lawful impulses.” He shrugged. “I'm sure one of my variants will take it from you, if you keep coming back.” He motioned to a chair. “Do sit down. Doctor Obrion, and keep me company for a few minutes. Delaying you may spin the probabilities more profoundly.”

  Juan took off his pack and sat down in the chair facing Tasarov. The din from the floor was louder, but the Russian spoke over it. “You seem about to ask me something.”

  Juan nodded. “Why are you confined here? I'm curious about what it may be in this variant.”

  Tasarov smiled and leaned back in his chair until it creaked. “Simple vindictiveness. My enemies were jealous. My name was changed on certain records, and I was shipped out. My enemy wanted to deny me a chance to work, to fulfill myself, at least in the world I knew. The fact that I would suffer, unable to contribute, warmed his heart.” He smiled. “The news you have brought me is very consoling. There must be variants in which I'm still there, irritating my enemy! Do you know anything interesting about me?”

  Juan stood up. “You're certain that you won't come back with me?”

  The big Russian nodded. “How would I be able to live with myself, knowing that my friends are still here?”

  Juan said, “I don't know what to say to convince you. Your reasons are the best wrong ones I can imagine.”

  Tasarov stood up as Juan put on his pack. “I feel you are already a friend.” He laughed. “I hope my variants remember!”

  * * *

  “I told you so,” the shuttle keeper said.

  Juan dropped his pack and sat on it. “Get away from me.”

  “So polite.”

  The viewspace came on as the shuttle took off. He tried to ignore the keeper, but the man kept staring at him.

  “Do you see this?” Juan said, taking out his automatic and pointing it at him.

  The keeper smiled. “I don't think you'll use it. Can't figure you out.”

  Juan tightened his grip and took careful aim at the man's chest. “What good would it do you to figure me out?”

  The keeper's smile faded as he retreated out into the passage. Juan grimaced at the weapon and put it away.

  * * *

  Somewhere, the web builders' civilization was in full flower, fulfilling the dreams of alien imaginations; but its existence required the presence of desolate, ghost-filled continua. Juan tried to imagine why existing objects carried nonexistent twins. Every stone might not have existed, yet each nonexistent made sense as the subject of a sentence. . .

  The nightmare of seemingly reasonable links between ideas was absurd. He knew that he was
asleep, but he was not yet ready to break out of the dream. A deeper self would carry him through the chain of reasoning to a subtle conclusion, and he would awaken. . .

  He saw the shuttle keeper hiding in a canyon of nonexistent objects. The man spotted him and leered. “You want to see human destiny?” he shouted from behind massed geometrical shapes. “Watch two people fuck! Nothing's more obviously set up to happen except birth, eating and shitting, and dying! In between, you fuck!”

  I'm lost, Juan thought, struggling to open his eyes.

  “Not yet!” the keeper cried.

  In all the variants open to him, Juan knew there had to be a way to deal with his despair.

  “No utopias!” the keeper shrieked. “You can see them, know what they are, but you can't have even one!” His hand reached out from the deep gorge and grabbed Juan's throat.

  He opened his eyes and sat up. Titus stood at the foot of his bed.

  The director said, “You seemed to be wrestling with yourself.”

  “Are they back yet?” Juan asked, remembering that he had missed Lena, Malachi, and Magnus again. They were with Tasarov in this variant, still looking for him.

  “No,” Titus said. “Better just wait it out. If you go now, you'll only shift things for yourself again.”

  “But you still want Tasarov?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if he doesn't have anything for you?”

  “I'll put him to work. He's wasted out there.”

  Juan said, “He'll refuse.”

  “Then we'll bring him back by force.”

  “That might cost lives.”

  “Not if we're careful.”

  “I won't go, Titus, Send your armed goons and see what it'll get you. The man doesn't know anything, and I haven't heard anything from him to make me think that he'll ever do useful work in variant theory. It's unlikely that anyone can. Do you understand? No one knows a damned thing about how and why all this happens!”

  “Calm yourself, Juan.” There was something of the keeper's leer in Summet's expression. “You've been under a lot of stress. Your judgment's shot.”

  “Because I disagree with you?”

  “Of course not. Look, you may be right about Tasarov being useless. Maybe he should be where he is, but you could try to be more convincing.”

  It was unlike Summet to show this much doubt, Juan thought.

  “I'm on your side, Juan. I let you go out there because from day one I was convinced that good would come of it.”

  “And I haven't delivered, have I?”

  “Don't be stupid. You helped open the web.”

  “And it's being used as just another way to avoid problems and help the powerful.” He closed his eyes, realizing how much he missed Lena, and how little he had given her.

  Titus sighed. “The web is not a tunnel out of life. Forgive us, and yourself, if only a little. It's not over yet.”

  40. RECURSIONS

  “Who are you?” the keeper shouted from the shuttle, his voice echoing insanely in the bay.

  “Three people came through here,” Juan said as he approached.

  “They went back,” the man answered dourly, then sat down in the lock.

  “When?”

  “Hours ago, with a group of armed Russkies.”

  “Was Tasarov with them?”

  The keeper nodded. “Why'd they want him back?”

  Juan retreated toward the exit.

  “Not very sociable, are you!” the convict cried after him. Juan slipped through the glow—

  —and hurried down the passage to the frame chamber.

  * * *

  Again, the soldiers sent him out through their checkpoints in the winding passage. He went up slowly toward the outer lock, wondering what he would find in this variant. Every pass through a frame twisted the cruel knot within him tighter. The only solution, if he could call it that, would be to never again venture across the probabilities. Could he put down new roots?

  He heard voices. Three figures came around the turn. Each was in full gear.

  “Juan!” Lena cried.

  His face stiffened as she came toward him, innocent of what he knew. For a moment he imagined himself standing behind her with Magnus and Malachi, straining to become real.

  She stopped before him. “Juan, are you all right? Why are you coming back?” Her eyes seemed a little grayer, but then she lifted her head and he saw they were the blue he remembered.

  His two friends came up and stood beside her. Malachi's broad, dark face was unchanged, and Magnus was the same lean, older man. “We decided to come,” Malachi said.

  “If you'll have us,” Magnus added.

  Too late, Juan thought, overcome with regret.

  “Well, shall we do as Summet wants?” Malachi asked, smiling.

  Magnus dropped his pack. Juan felt a rush of panic.

  “What is it?” Malachi said.

  “You must know,” Juan managed to say, “that I can't be the one you knew.”

  “We know,” Magnus said.

  “Lena, you were killed out there,” he said, trembling. Her thinning face drew itself into a mask as she gazed at him, and she was a stranger.

  * * *

  “We're fooling ourselves,” Juan said in his quarters. He turned on his back.

  Lena sat up and hugged the pillow to her breast. “But are we? We're the same people. Am I so different from her, Juan?”

  “No—except for a few memories.”

  She said, “I had a nightmare a week ago about dying on that far world.” He lifted his head, startled. “Juan, why did you go off without me?”

  “I waited. Titus told me neither Magnus nor Malachi would come. Then Mal called me and said he couldn't go—Dita had just left for Russia, but he was hoping she'd come back, so he was staying on the chance she might. Titus couldn't reach you.”

  “I came as soon as I got the message,” she said.

  “So did your variant.”

  “Mal told me when he arrived that he knew Dita wouldn't come back. I think their farewells were pretty final before she left. She really wanted to go back, and he knew he couldn't follow her.”

  “I figured as much when I saw he was here.”

  She put the pillow aside and lay back next to him. “We're lucky to have each other at all. We're not any more confused than most people.”

  He was silent, unable to answer.

  “Juan?”

  He reached over and caressed her belly.

  “You mustn't give up,” she said. “We can't give up. I may seem a substitute for the Lena you knew, but we can start again. It's the same for me. We have that in common.”

  He said, “You probably still think my misanthropy a defect of some kind.”

  She looked at him with tenderness. “I couldn't bear to see you hating yourself.”

  The door buzzed.

  “Come in!” she shouted, pulling up the covers over them.

  It slid open. Summet came in and stopped as it closed. “There's been an armed breakout, but it was stopped in the winding passage.”

  Juan sat up. “Was Tasarov among them?”

  “No.”

  “Any dead?” Lena asked.

  “Ten. More than a hundred wounded.”

  “So they copied my gun,” Juan said, feeling responsible.

  “I couldn't have let you go unarmed,” Summet insisted.

  “And we don't have Tasarov. Was it necessary to shoot back?”

  Summet nodded. “They came through in a suicide wave and overwhelmed the first guards. Then they went up the passage with hostages.”

  “Which you let them kill,” Juan said.

  “Standing orders. I had no say in it.”

  “A suicide wave,” Juan said. “Doesn't that tell you anything, Titus? Have you come for our approval? What do you want from us now?”

  “I want you to go back to Tasarov. Maybe he'll come out now. I know the variant may not carry over, but I want to try. Tell him he
can bring three people out with him.”

  “Generous of you.”

  Summet said, “I sympathize with how you feel, but I must think of the larger good, according to what is possible. You want life to be fair, brave, and honest, people to be decent, and for things to always come out right in the end.”

  “Too much to ask of mere human beings,” Juan answered.

  “Will you go?”

  “You know I have to,” Juan said.

  * * *

  There was blood in the winding passage. The dead and wounded had been removed, but Juan felt their presence. Was there a variant in which the break had succeeded? It had to be there, however small the chance. He stopped before the large portal to the deep chamber and faced Lena, Malachi, and Magnus.

  “I can do this myself,” he said.

  Magnus smiled. “What's one more variant?”

  “We'll stay together,” Malachi added, “from now on.”

  “It may get even more dangerous,” Juan said.

  Lena said, “Juan, we've all had time to think and discuss it, and we've concluded that we can't ever go back to our private lives. The web is too important, too filled with danger and possibility for our kind. We must devote all our efforts to understanding and using it, and we know you feel the same. Summet is right about getting Tasarov on our side.”

  “Our side,” Magnus said, “is either UN-ERS, in the person of Titus, or the four of us. Arrogant as it may sound, it's up to us to do what Titus can't do, and to take things out of his hands if we can.”

  “Do you believe he'll sit still for it?” Juan asked, glancing back at the turn, where a few soldiers were lighting up cigarettes.

  Malachi said, “In his heart he's one of us.”

  “But he'll oppose us,” Juan replied, “if it threatens his authority.”

  “Well, that is reasonable, old man,” Malachi said. “He can't be pure in his position. Neither are we. He needs us to cut his hair.”

  “And who will cut ours?” Juan asked.

  “No one,” Malachi replied. “The cut stops here.”

  “We'd better go,” Lena whispered, “before something stops us.”