by Nancy Kress
“They—”
“Will all live, all eight of you. Tough sons of bitches.”
Her smile was glorious. Leo slept again.
* * *
Salah lay motionless, hoping that would still both the vomiting and the vertigo. Like most doctors, he was seldom ill; more delicate types didn’t survive med school. Feeling this bad was new to him. But, he thought with the introspection natural to him, doing nothing was not.
Everyone he’d ever known would dispute that. Salah Bourgiba, polymath, Renaissance man. Respected physician, historian, speaker of five languages—six, now. But Salah knew, even if no one else did, that he had made only two independent decisions in his life: Aisha and applying for this expedition.
Otherwise, he had just drifted along the path marked out for him by others. The right schools and the right career choice, neither ever imperiled by the sorts of political activism—for the environment, the homeless, the economy, a dozen different idealistic causes—that had seized some of his classmates. The right hospitals for internship and residency, obtained partly by his own easy successes and partly by parental string-pulling that he had not asked about too closely. The right publications and board memberships and political stances, flowing from being born with the right connections. He had dotted every I, touched every base, filled out every required line on every form. Drifting, without decision, through all of it.
Ironically, it was this very lack of independent action that had gotten him selected for this mission. The government liked that he was a known and reliable entity. But others had urged him to apply. Then, having been chosen, the rest had also been well-marked and easy paths. Learn the language, study what little was known on Terra about Kindred culture, follow the leadership of Ambassador Gonzalez. It seemed to Salah that the last independent decision he had made, the last self-chosen action, had been Aisha, twenty-five years ago.
And look how that had turned out.
Bile rose in his gorge, and he turned to vomit into the metal bucket by his platform bed.
* * *
Austin woke in the middle of the night and bolted upright on his sleeping mat. He had the best idea of his life!
All around him, his lahk slept, each person in his own tiny private room: Isabelle-kal, Austin’s mother, Steven-kal and Joshua-kal, who both were leaving tomorrow for their manufacturies. Noah was not here; he’d gone to Llaa^moh¡’s lahk but would be back tomorrow.
The velvety darkness smelled of spicy pika¡ in the garden below. A white moth—that’s what his mother called them—beat its wings against the screen in Austin’s window. The moth almost got through; the threads of the screen needed tightening again. Austin was supposed to do that tomorrow, as well as harvest culab. And turn the compost heap and bring a lot of stuff to Isabelle’s studio for her sculptures. Well, he had more important things to do than lahk chores!
Tony needed a biologist. He had planned on Llaa^moh¡ because she knew the most about the spores. But now there were new Terran doctors on World! Tony didn’t know that because the radio hadn’t described what the Terrans did, but Austin knew. And all three doctors lay sick and helpless in the clinic. One would not be hard to kidnap.
Although there were soldiers here, too, with guns. Austin tasted both unfamiliar words on his tongue: Soldiers. Guns. Of course, Kindred had police, but they weren’t really soldiers, and they didn’t carry guns, only tanglefoam and water cannons and tasers. Still, the soldiers were sick and helpless, too, getting their insides changed so they could live on World.
Which doctor? Not Marianne Jenner. Too old, and she would probably be lahk mother when she got well again. (Would Isabelle mind not being mother anymore? Austin didn’t know, but it was clear that the new Terrans belonged to this lahk and that Marianne-kal was the oldest woman.) So: Salah Bourgiba or the pretty little woman with the dark skin, Claire Patel. She might be easiest to kidnap, but Tony would decide that.
But it was Austin who’d had the idea! He lay back down on his mat, enormously pleased with himself.
Above him, the white moth squeezed through the sagging window screen and flapped around the room, trying to get out again.
CHAPTER 7
Isabelle stood with Llaa^moh¡ in the lobby of the clinic when a Ranger, Leo Somebody, walked shakily in. No, not a Ranger, his uniform had lacked the Ranger tab; this was the Army sniper somehow attached to Lieutenant Lamont’s unit. He had recovered faster than everybody else. Barefoot, Leo wore only a clinic shift, in which his muscular body looked ridiculous. “I greet you,” she said.
“Hi. Ms. Rhinehart—”
“Isabelle is fine.”
“Isabelle, where are my unit’s weapons? I checked on the lieutenant and the three others and they’re still really sick and don’t know much. Where are the weapons?”
“This is Noah’s wife, Llaa^moh¡. Private … uh, Leo.”
“I greet you, Leo.”
“Hi. The weapons?”
“Locked up,” Isabelle said, and stood. This was going to be a confrontation.
“Unlock them.” Leo’s eyes were cold.
“I don’t have the authority to do that.”
“Who does?”
“The Mother of … of this governmental region ordered it. We don’t have weapons, Leo. Not on Kindred.”
“I do. Send for this mother person. Or whoever is in charge of your army.”
“We don’t have an army, either.”
He stared at her. Isabelle wasn’t frightened of him, but the steady gaze from those blue eyes was disconcerting. She said, “If you’ll excuse us, we’re busy. And you should probably be back in bed.”
To her surprise, he left. Llaa^moh¡, who had some English but not much since Noah preferred to talk in World, said, “What did the soldier say?”
“He wants their weapons back.”
“He may not have them.”
“No.”
They bent again over the table. On it stood Marianne Jenner’s laptop. Before Marianne’s fecal transplant, she’d told Isabelle that she had downloaded pertinent data onto it from dee-bees on the Friendship. Isabelle hadn’t seen a computer for years. The previous expedition to Earth had brought back several, but had not succeeded in manufacturing them. Not only too complex, but also too far beyond the level of technology permitted on World. Isabelle understood how necessary that level was; World had only one continent, rich but limited in size. Worlders could not afford to exploit resources beyond sustainability. Everyone knew this, since it made a large section of schooling for the young, part of bu^ka^tel. Above all, respect and care for Mother World. Control population. Mine with care. Hand-make whatever did not require a manufactury. Even the transistors that Steve and Josh made, the transistors that earned the entire lahk its living, had taken two years to be approved.
The computers from the original expedition had been usable as stand-alones, once the voltages of World electricity had been adjusted. So had the gene sequencer and other equipment brought from Earth. But over time, the equipment had broken. Some had been repaired, but for the computers, no sophisticated parts were available, or could be made. As much vital data as possible had been printed, which mostly meant data on spores and on the progress made toward a vaccine before the original expedition had been forced to leave Terra hours ahead of the spore cloud. The data had not been enough. No vaccine.
But this was new data, on a new computer. Isabelle didn’t know how to adapt it to World voltage; that might have been done in the destroyed capital. For now, the laptop was running on its limited battery. Isabelle translated the files Marianne had marked from English into World, and Llaa^moh¡ recorded the data. Most of the time, Isabelle didn’t know what the medical words meant, or what their equivalent would be in World, but Llaa^moh¡ was a scientist capable of making accurate guesses, and they were doing the best they could until Marianne recovered. The spore cloud would be here in another ten weeks, and the biologist and two doctors all lay in bed with fever and vomiting and
diarrhea.
“Turn on the radio,” Llaa^moh¡ said.
Isabelle did, and for a few moments they both listened. No new attacks anywhere. Llaa^moh¡ was, of course, worried about her daughter.
Isabelle said, “I think the first reports were right. That Russian ship went back to Terra.”
“They came all this way just to kill us!”
Isabelle looked away from the anguish in Llaa^moh¡’s dark eyes. Llaa^moh¡ didn’t understand, of course she didn’t. There were no wars on cooperative World, only the occasional murder over money or sex or just pure human craziness—and not very many of those. Nationality and patriotism, with its large-scale us–them duality, was unknown when there was only “us.”
Llaa^moh¡ reached out and took Isabelle’s face between her hands. “Listen to me, lahk-sister-of-my-husband. You must be careful of yourself. Noah has told me that there are Worlders who resent Terrans, all Terrans, because of the Russian attacks. These are not intelligent people. They think that all Terrans must be the same, because we Worlders are all so much the same. There is crazy talk in the villages closer to the destroyed cities. You must be careful of yourself, of Austin and Kayla, of everyone in your lahk.”
Isabelle stared at Llaa^moh¡. Was this true? In the face of the Terran attack on the cities, and the terrible spore-cloud attack still to come, were some Worlders no longer willing to keep what Noah had called “the Pax Worlda”? That was supposed to be a joke. But Llaa^moh¡’s urgency was no joke.
Us. Them. The Russians had created duality.
Isabelle said in World, “Let’s bring this computer to town. Maybe someone there can recharge the battery.”
* * *
Leo’s legs still felt shaky; he ignored the sensation and left his room. The clinic was built in an irregular square around a sort of courtyard open to each room and the sky. In one room, Zoe and Marianne Jenner lay on two beds, Zoe asleep. Dr. Jenner looked back at Leo, then turned her head to vomit into a bucket. The room smelled terrible and Dr. Jenner looked worse. Leo’s stomach roiled and he backed out hastily. A Kindred nurse pushed past him to go to her patients.
Kandiss still slept. In another room Owen lay open eyed but muttering. His wrists were strapped to the bed, which made Leo clench his jaw until he remembered, dimly, that his wrists had been, too. Hospitals did that, didn’t they, to keep patients not in their right minds from hurting themselves or anybody else. Well, all right, then. For now. In the other bed, the lab assistant, Carter, was awake. He waved feebly at Leo. Dr. Patel slept on a floor mat in what looked like an office; Leo didn’t go in.
He found what he wanted in the only room without windows. The only way to reach this room was through the courtyard, in full view of the staff. The door was locked, but it didn’t look strong. Leo threw himself against it.
A man rushed across the courtyard, shouting in Kindese. Leo threw himself against the door again. The motion made his head hammer and his knees buckle, but the door gave. Security here was shit.
Cabinets with wooden doors lined three sides of the windowless room, open shelves the fourth. Leo picked up something heavy from a shelf, a piece of metal equipment he didn’t understand, and smashed the largest cabinet door, keeping at it until the lock gave. Cloth bags and glass vials. He began on a second cabinet.
“Corporal Brodie, stop.” Dr. Bourgiba, shaky but upright, with a crowd of Kindred behind him. Leo scanned the group briefly. No one armed, no one moving toward him. He returned to smashing the cabinet door.
It was all inside: rifles, sidearms, armor, grenades, ammunition. Leo picked up a Beretta and checked it. Unloaded. Facing the group in the doorway, he calmly loaded it. “Doctor, don’t try to interfere. These are our weapons.”
“I see that,” Bourgiba said. He spoke in Kindese to everybody else, who frowned and scowled and muttered and did nothing. Good thing for them.
“Tell them all not to try this again.”
“Weapons are not permitted on Kindred, Leo.”
“They are now.”
Bourgiba let out a throaty sound, which might have been a sigh or a protest or a resignation. Not that it mattered which. Leo said, “I’m going to take these to my room. All of them. Nobody had better try to stop me.”
“No one will. May I help?”
“No. You look like you should go back to bed.”
“Try to understand, Leo, it’s a different culture.”
“I get that. But this is my culture.”
Bourgiba spoke to the Kindred, who scowled and muttered some more and then drifted away.
To move the whole stock without leaving any out of sight, Leo had to carry the gear in stages. Some to the courtyard, more to the courtyard, then more, then the rest. Repeat to the door of his room, repeat until everything was inside. By the time he finished, he felt weaker than even Ranger school had ever left him. Bourgiba, who had watched the entire operation, said, “You need to hydrate. Then to eat.”
“Is their water and food going to make me start vomiting again?”
“It didn’t with me.”
Leo considered his options. There weren’t any. “Okay, then, food.”
Bourgiba brought it himself, a polished wooden bowl of what looked like rice topped with what looked like fruit. Or vegetables. But it smelled good and Leo ate it, sitting on the edge of his bed, the unit’s weapons piled around him. Bourgiba sagged against the wall. Kandiss slept.
Bourgiba said, “I need to examine you. Bodies vary in their transition to alien microbes.”
Leo had already noticed that; he was deeply annoyed that Bourgiba seemed to have recovered faster than he had.
The doctor said, “The immune system goes wild with the intrusion of what it initially perceives as pathogens. Two of the original expedition died this way, and now we might also lose Marianne Jenner.”
Leo stopped eating. Damn. He liked Dr. Jenner. After a moment he said, “Don’t you need her to make vaccines?”
“Yes. Although Claire and I can do it alone if we have to.”
Leo finished his bowl and waited to see what his stomach would do. It roiled a little, but not much. He felt less shaky now. “Lieutenant Lamont?”
“He’ll be fine. So will the others. I expect them up by evening. Maybe longer for Zoe—her body just took a double insult, after all.”
“She’ll be up.” Bourgiba didn’t understand about Rangers. “What happens now?”
“The Kindred hospitals and research labs have been destroyed. There are not quite ten weeks left to synthesize and administer vaccines, assuming we can make them. We’ll work here—in fact, we already are. We have taken over two nearby buildings. More personnel and equipment are coming from other clinics, although the major sources were in the cities destroyed by the Stremlenie.”
Leo thought hard. “You mean, everybody on Kindred knows this will be where to get a vaccine?”
“Probably not everybody. We’ve asked medical personnel to not share details with anyone.”
Yeah, right, like that would happen if equipment and doctors were traveling across the continent and there was only enough vaccine for some people but not everybody. He said, “How close are the other two buildings?”
“One is about fifty yards away, a school. The other is across a field.”
A security nightmare. “Which is bigger?”
“The school is much bigger. That’s where we’re setting up a lab now.”
“Okay. Until Lieutenant Lamont takes over, I’m in charge of security here. Board up every window in the school and every window in this clinic that faces outward. Get workmen to build a covered walkway between the buildings, as strong as they can make it, not just those sliding woven panels. Get that done immediately.”
“I don’t have any authority to—”
“You have something everybody needs. Whoever owns these buildings will cooperate and so will the government. Promise them early vaccination if you have to.”
“Leo, it doesn’t work that w
ay here.”
Leo found his clothes in a cupboard. He stripped off the nightgown and pulled on underwear and pants. “Tell me, Doctor—are there rumors anywhere, on the radio or with the medical types arriving here now, of people hoarding food or fortifying their houses or generally getting ready to survive if they happen to be among the ones that the spore disease doesn’t kill? Any rumors at all?”
Bourgiba was silent.
“I thought so. This place doesn’t work that way, now. This is a peaceful place, now.” He pulled on his boots. “But just in case it starts to work that way when things break down, we’re going to be ready.”
* * *
It was two weeks before Marianne was able to sit up in bed. She knew she’d nearly died. All her life she’d read accounts of people who’d survived plane crashes, cancer treatments, house fires. Every single one had said that, afterward, their appreciation of small things had deepened into gratitude for the glory of life.
She was really irritated that it was true.
The hard platform bed felt wonderful under her; the fruit she was brought to eat in small nibbles tasted better than any fruit she’d ever had; the karthwood of her clinic room gleamed like burnished gold. Sweet, faintly spicy air smelling of rain drifted through a small screened window. She was marooned on a planet about to undergo the death throes of its civilization, and she had never felt so alive.
Had Harrison Rice, her last romantic partner, felt this way in the brief time between his diagnosis and death? He hadn’t said so. Stoic and detached, Harrison had kept his feelings to himself. But it had been his death that decided Marianne to come to Kindred and see Noah one last time. So complicated, the threads that mortality spun in human minds.
“Mom,” Noah said—this strange Noah with deep coppery skin and huge eyes, surgically altered—“are you well enough to meet your granddaughter?”
Something clutched in Marianne’s heart. “Yes!”
They came a few minutes later: Llaa^moh¡, whom Marianne had known as “Officer Jones” on Terra, with a thin child by the hand. “I greet you, mother-of-my-husband,” Llaa^moh¡ said in heavily accented English. “This is Lil^da. Lily.’”