Crashlander

by Larry Niven

  Carlos’s tape was a wonderful lesson in communication. He wants to talk to Feather. The children are not to be put at risk. Beowulf is presumed dead. C’est la vie; Carlos will not seek vengeance. But he wants Sharrol alive. Feather is not to come to Home without Sharrol. Carlos can enforce any agreement. He hadn’t said so because it’s too obvious. A frozen Feather, arriving at Home unaccompanied, need never wake.

  And he had the money! Not just his own funds, but the money Feather knew about, “family funds”: he must have reached civilization ahead of her and somehow sequestered what Feather had funneled through the ARM. If Feather was loose on Fafnir, then she was also broke. She owned nothing but the credit that would get her a hyperwave call to Home, or herself and Sharrol shipped frozen. Though Carlos didn’t know it, even Sharrol had escaped.

  Nearly five months. How was Feather living? Did she have a job? Something I could track? With her training she might be better off as a thief.

  Yah! I tumbled out of the sleepfield and tapped out my needs in some haste. She hadn’t been caught at any capital crime, but any jail on Shasht would record Adelaide Graynor’s retina prints. The caller ran its search…

  Nothing.

  Okay, job. Feather needed something that would allow her time to take care of a prisoner. She had to have that if she had Sharrol, or in case she recaptured Sharrol, or captured Beowulf.

  So I looked through some job listings, but nothing suggested itself. I turned off the caller and hoped for sleep. Perhaps I dozed a little.

  Sometime in the night I realized that I had nothing more to say to Carlos.

  Even Sharrol’s escape wasn’t information unless she stayed loose. Feather was a trained ARM. I was a self-trained tourist; I couldn’t possibly hunt her down. There was only one way to hunt Feather.

  It was still black outside, and I was wide awake. The caller gave me a listing of all night restaurants.

  I ordered an elaborate breakfast, six kinds of fish eggs, gulper bacon, cappuccino. Five people at a table demanded that I join them, so I did. They were fresh from the coral isles via dirigible, still time-lagged, looking for new jokes. I tried to oblige. And somewhere in there I forgot all about missing ladies.

  We broke up at dawn. I walked back to the hotel alone. I had sidetracked my mind, hoping it would come up with something if I left it alone; but my answer hadn’t changed. The way to hunt Feather was to pretend to be Feather, and hunt Sharrol.

  Stet, I’m Feather Filip. What do I know about Sharrol? Feather must have researched her; she sure as tanj had researched me!

  Back up. How did Sharrol get loose?

  The simplest possible answer was that Sharrol dove into the water and swam away. Feather could beat her at most things, but a woman who had lived beneath the ocean for thirty years would swim just fine.

  Eventually a boat would find her.

  Eventually, an island. Penniless. She needs work now. What kind of work is that? It has to suit a flat phobe. She’s being hunted by a murderer, and the alien planet around her forces itself into her awareness every second. Dirigible stewardness is probably out. Hotel work would be better.

  Feather, days behind her, seeks work for herself, but the listings will tell her Sharrol’s choices too. And now I was back in the room and scanning through work listings.

  Qualifications—I couldn’t remember what Milcenta Graynor was supposed to be able to do. Sharrol’s skills wouldn’t match anyway, any more than mine matched Mart Graynor’s. So look for unskilled.

  Low salaries, of course. Except here: servant, kzinti embassy. Was that a joke? No: here was museum maintenance, must work with kzinti. Some of them had stayed with the embassy, or even become citizens. Could Sharrol handle that? She got along with strangers…even near-aliens, like me.

  Fishing boats, period of training needed. Hotel work. Underwater porter work, unskilled labor in Pacifica.

  Pacifica. Of course.

  Briefly I considered putting in for the porter job. Sharrol and/or Feather must have done that, grabbed whatever was to be had…but I told myself that Feather thought I had no money. She’d never look for me in Pacifica’s second-best…ah, best hotel.

  The truth is, I prefer playing tourist.

  I scanned price listings for hotels in Pacifica; called and negotiated for a room at the Pequod. Then I left Shasht in untraditional fashion, via oversized transfer booth, still in early morning.

  It was night in Pacifica. I checked in, crawled between sleeping plates and zonked out, my time-lagged body back on track.

  I woke late, fully rested for the first time in days. There was a little round window next to my nose. I gazed out, floating half mesmerized, remembering the Great Barrier Reef outside Carlos Wu’s apartment.

  The strangeness and variety of Earth’s sea life had stunned me then. But these oceans were older. Evolution had filled ecological niches not yet dreamed of on Earth.

  It was shady out there, under a wonderful variety of seaweed growths, like a forest in fog. Life was everywhere. Here a school of transparent bell jars, nearly invisible, opened and closed to jet themselves along. Quasi-terrestrial fish glowed as if alien graffiti had been scrawled across them in Day-Glo ink to identify them to potential mates. Predators hid in the green treetops: torpedo shapes dived from cover and disappeared back into the foliage with prey wriggling in long jaws.

  A boneless arm swept straight down from a floating seaweed island, toward the orange neon fish swimming just above the sandy bottom. Its stinger-armed hand flexed and fell like a net over its wriggling prey…and a great mouth flexed wider and closed over the wrist. The killer was dark and massive, shaped like a ray of Earth’s sea. The smaller fish was painted on its back; it moved with the motion of the ray. The ray chewed, reeling the arm in, until a one-armed black oyster was ripped out of the seaweed tree and pulled down to death.

  One big beast, like a long dolphin with gills and great round eyes, stopped to look me over. Owl rams were said to be no brighter than a good dog, but Fafnir scientists had been hard put to demonstrate that, and Fafnir fishers still didn’t believe it.

  I waved solemnly. It bowed…well, bobbed in place before it flicked away.

  My gear was arrayed in a tidy row, with the stunner nearest my hand. I’d put the reflector back on. I could reach it in an instant. Your Honor, of course it’s for scuba swimming. Why else would I be in possession of a device that can knock Feather Filip into a coma before she can blow a great bloody hole through my torso?

  I didn’t actually want to go scuba swimming.

  Sharrol swam like a fish; she could be out there right now. Still, at a distance and underwater, would I know her? And Feather might know me, and Feather would certainly swim better than me, and I could hardly ignore Feather.

  Sharrol had to be living underwater. It was the only way she could stay sane. Life beyond the glass was alien, stet, but the life of Earth’s seas seems alien too. My slow wits hadn’t seen that at first, but Feather’s skills would solve that puzzle.

  And Beowulf Shaeffer had to be underwater, to avoid sunlight. Feather could find me for the wrong reasons!

  And the police of Fafnir, of whom I knew nothing at all, might well be studying me in bemused interest. He’s bought a weapon! But why, if he has the blaster that blew a hole through this vest? And it’s a fishing weapon, and he’s gone to Pacifica…which might cause them to hold off a few hours longer.

  So, with time breathing hot on my neck, I found the hotel restaurant and took my time over fruit, fish eggs in a baked potato, and cappuccino.

  My time wasn’t wasted. The window overlooked a main street of Pacifica’s village-size collection of bubbles. I saw swimsuits, and casually dressed people carrying diving or fishing gear. Almost nobody dressed formally. That would be for Shasht, for going to work. In the breakfast room itself I saw four business tunics in a crowd of a hundred. And two men in dark blue police uniforms that left arms and legs bare: you could swim in them.

  And o
ne long table, empty, with huge chairs widely spaced. I wondered how often kzinti came in. It was hard to believe they’d be numerous, forty years after mankind had taken over.

  Back in the room I fished out the little repair kit and set to work on my transfer booth card.

  We learned this as kids. The idea is to make a bridge of superconductor wire across the central circuits. Transport companies charge citizens a quarterly fee to cover local jumps. The authorities don’t get upset if you stay away from the borders of the card. The borders are area codes.

  Well, it looked like the kind of card we’d used then. Fafnir’s booth system served a small population that didn’t use booths much. It could well be decades old, long due for replacement. So I’d try it.

  I got into casuals. I rolled my wet suit around the rest of my scuba gear and stuffed the stunner into one end where I could grab it fast. Stuffed the bundle into my backpurse—it stuck way out—and left the room.

  Elevators led to the roof. Admissions was here, and a line of the big transfer booths, and a transparent roof with an awesome view up into the sea forest. I stepped into a booth and inserted my card. The random walk began.

  A shopping mall, high up above a central well. Booths in a line, just inside a big water lock. A restaurant; another; an apartment building. I was jumping every second and a half.

  Nobody noticed me flicking in; would they notice how quickly I flicked out? Nobody gets upset at a random walk unless the kids do it often enough to tie up circuits. But they might remember an adult. How long before someone called the police?

  A dozen kzinti, lying about in cool half darkness gnawing oddly shaped bones, rolled to a defensive four-footed crouch at the sight of me. I couldn’t help it: I threw myself against the back wall. I must have looked crazed with terror when the random walk popped me into a Solarico Omni center. I was trying to straighten my face when the jump came. Hey—A travel terminal of some kind; I turned and saw the dirigible, like an underpressured planet, before the scene changed—Her!

  Beyond a thick glass wall, the seaweed forest swarmed with men and women wearing fins: farmers picking spheres that glowed softly in oil-slick colors. I waited my moment and snatched my card out of the slot. Was it really—I tapped quickly to get an instant billing, counted two back along the booth numbers. I couldn’t use the jimmied card for this, so I’d picked up a handful of coins. Her?

  Solarico Omni, top floor. I stepped out of the booth, and saw the gates that would stop a shoplifter, and a stack of lockers.

  For the first time I had second thoughts about the way I was dressed. Nothing wrong with the clothes, but I couldn’t carry a mucking great package of diving gear into a shopping center, with a stunner so handy. I pushed my backpurse into a locker and stepped through the gates.

  The whole complex was visible from the rim of the central well. It was darker down there than I was used to. Pacifica citizens must like their underwater gloom, I thought.

  Two floors down, an open fast-food center: wasn’t that where I’d seen her? She was gone now. I’d seen only a face, and I could have been wrong. At least she’d never spot me, not before I was much closer.

  But where was she? Dressed how? Employee or customer? It was midmorning: she couldn’t be on lunch break. Customer, then. Only, Shashters kept poor track of time.

  Three floors down, the sports department. Good enough. I rode down the escalator. I’d buy a spear gun or another stunner, shove everything into the bag that came with it. Then I could start window shopping for faces.

  The Sports Department aisles were pleasantly wide. Most of what it sold was fishing gear, a daunting variety. There was skiing equipment too. And hunting, it looked like: huge weapons built for hands bigger than a baseball mitt. The smallest was a fat tube as long as my forearm, with a grip no bigger than a kzinti kitten’s hand. Oh, sure, kzinti just love going to humans for their weapons. Maybe the display was there to entertain human customers.

  The clerks were leaving me alone to browse. Customs differ. What the tanj was that?

  Two kzinti in the aisle, spaced three yards apart, hissing the Hero’s Tongue at each other. A handful of human customers watched in some amusement. There didn’t seem to be danger there. One wore what might be a loose dark blue swimsuit with a hole for the tail. The other (sleeveless brown tunic) took down four yards of disassembled fishing rod. A kzinti clerk?

  The corner of my eye caught a clerk’s hands (human) opening the case and reaching in for that smaller tube, with a grip built for a kzin child. Or a man—

  My breath froze in my throat. I was looking into Feather’s horrible ARM weapon. I looked up into the clerk’s face.

  It came out as a whisper. “No, Sharrol, no no no. It’s me. It’s Beowulf.”

  She didn’t fire. But she was pale with terror, her jaw set like rock, and the black tube looked at the bridge of my nose.

  I eased two inches to the right, very slowly, to put myself between the tube and the kzin cop. That wasn’t a swimsuit he was wearing: it was the same sleeve less, legless police uniform I’d seen at breakfast.

  We were eye to eye. The whites showed wide around her irises. I said, “My face. Look at my face. Under the beard. It’s Bey, love. I’m a foot shorter. Remember?”

  She remembered. It terrified her.

  “I wouldn’t fit. The cavity was built for Carlos. My heart and lungs were shredded, my back was shattered, my brain was dying, and you had to get me into the cavity. But I wouldn’t fit, remember? Sharrol, I have to know.” I looked around quickly. An aisle over, kzinti noses came up, smelling fear. “Did you kill Feather?”

  “Kill Feather.” She set the tube down carefully on the display case. Her brow wrinkled. “I was going through my pockets. It was distracting me, keeping me sane. I needed that. The light was wrong, the gravity was wrong, the Earth was so far away—”

  “Shh.”

  “Survival gear, always know what you have, you taught me that.” She began to tremble. “I heard a sonic boom. I looked up just as you were blown backward. I thought I must be c-crazy. I couldn’t have seen that.”

  It was my back that felt vulnerable now. I felt all those floors behind and above me, all those eyes. The kzin cop had lost interest. If there was a moment for Feather Filip to take us both, this was it.

  But the ARM weapon was in Sharrol’s hands—

  “But Carlos jumped into the boat and roared off, and Feather screamed at him, and you were all blood and sprawled out like—like dead—and I, I can’t remember.”

  “Yes, dear.” I took her hand, greatly daring. “But I have to know if she’s still chasing us.”

  She shook her head violently. “I jumped on her back and cut her throat. She tried to point that tube at me. I held her arm down, she elbowed me in the ribs, I hung on, she fell down. I cut her head off. But Bey, there you were, and Carlos was gone and the kids were too, and what was I going to do?” She came around the counter and put her arms around me and said, “We’re the same height. Futz!”

  I was starting to relax. Feather was nowhere. We were free of her. “I kept telling myself you must have killed her. A trained ARM psychotic, but she didn’t take you seriously. She couldn’t have guessed how quick you’d wake up.”

  “I fed her into the organics reservoir.”

  “Yah. There was nowhere else all that biomass could have come from. It had to be Feather—”

  “And I couldn’t lift your body, and you wouldn’t fit anyway. I had to cut off your h-h-” She pulled close and tried to push her head under my jaw, but I wasn’t tall enough any more. “Head. I cut as low as I could. Tanj, we’re the same height. Did it work? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just short. The ’doc rebuilt me from my DNA, from the throat down, but it built me in Fafnir gravity. Good thing, too, I guess.”

  “Yah.” She was trying to laugh, gripping my arms as if I might disappear. “There wouldn’t have been room for your feet. Bey, we shouldn’t be talking here. T
hat kzin is a cop, and nobody knows how good their hearing is. Bey, I get off at sixteen hundred.”

  “I’ll shop. We’re both overdue on life gifts.”

  “How do I look? How should I look?”

  I had posed us on the roof of the Pequod, with the camera looking upward past us into the green seaweed forest. I said, “Just right. Pretty, cheerful, the kind of woman a man might drown himself for. A little bewildered. You didn’t contact me because you got a blow to the head. You’re only just healing. You ready? Take one, now.” I keyed the vidcamera.

  Me: “Wilhelmin, Toranaga, I hope you’re feeling as good as we are. I had no trouble finding Milcenta once I got my head on straight—”

  Sharrol (bubbling): “Hello! Thank you for Jan’s life, and thank you for teaching him to sail. I never could show him how to do that. We’re going to buy a boat as soon as we can afford it.”

  Me: “I’m ready to face the human race again. I hope you are too. This may help.” I turned the camera off.

  “What are you giving them?” Sharrol asked.

  “Silverware, service for a dozen. Now they’ll have to develop a social life.”

  “Do you think they turned you in?”

  “They had to. They did well by me, love. What bothers me is, they’ll never be sure I’m not a murderer. Neither will the police. This is a wonderful planet for getting rid of a corpse. I’ll be looking over my shoulder for that kzinti cop—”

  “No, Bey—”

  “He smelled our fear.”

  “They smell everyone’s fear. They make wonderful police, but they can’t react every time a kzin makes a human nervous. He may have pegged you as an outworlder, though.”

  “Oop. Why?”

  “Bey, the kzinti are everywhere on Fafnir, mostly on the mainland, but they’re on site at the fishing sources too. Fafnir sea life feeds the whole Patriarchy, and it’s strictly a kzinti operation. Shashters are used to kzin. But kids and wimps and outworlders all get twitchy around them, and they’re used to that.”

  He might have smelled more than our fear, I thought. Our genetic makeup, our diet…but we’d been eating Fafnir fish for over a month, and Fafnir’s people were every breed of man.