CROSSFIRE

by Nancy Kress

  Nothing we discover presents a security risk to humans."

  Ingrid said acidly, "You don't know if there's a biological risk. Contamination by parasite, for instance. That's why Todd and I need to—"

  George Fox cut her off. "There can't be just this one group of Fur villages, Captain Scherer. That really would be anomalous."

  Scherer said stiffly, "We find only one group."

  Lucy looked close to tears. Jake said tactfully, "Let's consider for a moment that they might be an exiled group, dropped out here by their own species as ... oh, a penal colony or political exiles or medical quarantine."

  Shipley said, startled, "Medical quarantine?"

  George's eyes lit up. "Maybe that explains their zombielike behavior."

  "If that's true," Gail said, "could their disease be dangerous to us? Doctor?"

  "It's rare for diseases to jump Terran species, let alone species with entirely different evolutionary paths. And any microbe would need time to adapt to us. No, I don't think we're in danger." Gail looked relieved.

  Ingrid said impatiently, "An entire other planet as a quarantine area or penal colony seems a bit extreme, if you ask me. Besides, I'm still not convinced the furry beasts just don't belong here."

  Shipley said mildly, "They're not beasts."

  Gail broke in. "Well, wherever they came from, for whatever reason, the Furs are here. Looking at it scientifically is interesting, but from a practical standpoint, I can't see that it's going to make much difference to Mira City. There are only a handful of Furs, they're over a hundred miles away, they aren't bothering us. If they indicate they don't want us camped beside their village, we'll stop bothering them. But our plans for Mira City aren't going to be affected at all, as far as I can see. Anybody disagree?"

  Everyone stared at her. Staggered, Shipley said, "Gail ... you're just going to ignore them? The only contact humanity has had with sentient aliens?"

  Faisal bin Saud, silent until now, said, "They do not sound very sentient to me. I agree with Gail. These Furs are negligible to our plans."

  Gail said, "What do you want us to do, Doctor? We sent a report to Earth by quee ... haven't we?"

  "Um, not yet," George said. "Since we're so limited in our quee transmissions, we wanted to gather more definitive information first. Besides, we've all been so busy studying the Furs that—"

  "Well, that's the real problem, as I see it," Gail said, with sudden heat. "Half our scientists are either at the Fur village or working day and night on Fur data in the lab, and work is getting neglected here. Dr. Shipley, I appreciate that you at least have stuck around in case some human actually needs medical help. But Ingrid, Todd, George—Thekla is complaining that your input into the agricultural effort has come to a complete halt. George, we don't have any kind of index of possibly poisonous plants or creatures. Jake, administrative problems are—"

  "All right, all right," Jake said testily, surprising Shipley. Jake usually had an outer shell of forced calm. "We see your point, Gail."

  "Good. Who's out at the village now for this extended camp-out? And who thinks they're leaving for the village this afternoon?"

  "I am," Lucy said. No one contradicted her. Mira City didn't have urgent need of an evolutionary paleontologist.

  "I am," Ingrid said. "Tissue samples—"

  "Tissue samples can wait," Gail said.

  "Issues of possible biological contamination—"

  Jake broke in. "We'll just have to take our chances. But I'll tell you what, Ingrid—you write the report to Earth."

  Ingrid smiled, pleased as a stroked cat. Whoever broke the news to Earth would have an instant place in history, Shipley knew. Jake knew his people. Ingrid would stop clamoring to go to the village. And since quee link could only take so much data for the stored energy they had, the report would be short enough to not consume too much of Ingrid's time.

  Captain Scherer said with his precise diction, "Five people stay now by the alien village. Private Mueller, for security. Two scientists—"

  "From our genetics staff," Todd said with strained cordiality. "They were supposed to fill in only while Ingrid and I analyzed the alien hair samples. This afternoon—"

  "No, you two are staying here," Gail said. "One of your staff can stay; you pick. Get the other back here when the skimmer takes Lucy. This is a colonization effort, remember, not a scientific expedition."

  And you people signed contracts, she didn't say. Shipley knew everyone heard the words anyway. Jake would have been more subtle. But Jake had lapsed into pensiveness, seeming not to listen.

  Captain Scherer continued, "One of Prince Faisal's group—"

  "My fifth son," Faisal said. Evidently this was news to Gail, if not to Jake. "We are interested in the natives. Salah investigates for us."

  "Interested how?" Gail said, frowning.

  Faisal smiled his charming, impenetrable smile. "Purely intellectually, Gail."

  "Good. And the fifth person—"

  "—is Miss Frayne," Captain Scherer said, Shipley's heart jolted. Naomi? What was she doing there? She hadn't told him.

  "What is she doing there?" Gail said. "She's not a scientist."

  Scherer said, "She asks to go."

  Gail said, "Half the city wants to go, to at least have a look at the aliens! Captain, who authorized this?"

  "I did," Scherer said.

  The table fell silent. Scherer stared straight ahead, but the flesh above his tight collar throbbed. Shipley watched it, dazed. Naomi at the Fur village...

  Gail said levelly, "Why, Captain? You have the right to do so, of course, but why did you give Nan Frayne permission and passage to the village?"

  "I see no reason to say no to Miss Frayne," Scherer said, which was no reason at all. Shipley's chest turned over. What was going on between Naomi and this man? Not the obvious, Shipley suspected. Scherer was too controlled, too militarily correct, for sexual bribery, and anyway Naomi hardly seemed someone who would appeal to him. So what?

  Jake moved the meeting past the awkward moment. "All right, then, we've finished with the Fur village. Ingrid, pick one of your staff to stay there and comlink the other to be ready for pickup when Captain Scherer takes Lucy. Lucy, do you need an assistant?"

  Faisal said, "My son Salah would be honored to assist you, Dr. Lasky. He is untrained in paleontology, of course, but then so is nearly everyone else on Greentrees except yourself. And Salah can provide you with anything in our compound's power, anything at all."

  Lucy knew a good thing when she saw it. She said, "Thank you, Mr. Saud. I'm sure Salah will be very useful." Jake Holman scowled.

  "Then let's move on to legitimate colony business," Gail said. "Jake, about the solar panels—"

  Shipley stopped listening. He slipped out of the room, avoiding everyone's eyes. Outside, he walked in a straight line to the edge of the human activity, nodding brusquely when anyone spoke to him but not slowing down. By the time he cleared the last inflatable, he was puffing.

  Beyond the embryonic city, the wide river flowed between low grassy banks dotted with wildflowers. These flowers were beautiful; perhaps all flowers were beautiful. Ancient Egyptians had included flowers among the treasures sealed into tombs with the dead. However, since George Fox was still testing native flora for substances toxic to humans, and since nonedible flowers were not high on the biologist's list, no one knew yet how many of these blossoms might be poisonous.

  So far the humans had been remarkably lucky. They were, according to George Fox, in the best possible position. Because life on Greentrees was DNA-based, it was possible to alter the genome of many plants to make them digestible to the Earthly interlopers. The altered seeds would be cultivated as soon as the geneticists and the agriculturists were done tinkering with them. On the other hand, Earth's and Greentrees' evolutionary paths had been different enough that the local parasites hadn't evolved to colonize human guts, eyes, or brains. The same might be true of plant toxins as well; they had evolved to aff
ect other life, not humans. Only the predatory vine nicknamed "red creeper" had proved dangerous. It tangled small mammals in remarkably fast-moving, ground-level tendrils and dissolved them. All red creeper had been eradicated inside the city perimeter.

  This section of riverbank, however, with its lush wild growth, was still outside the perimeter and off-limits, even though the river was the reason humans had settled at this site. Testing the river water had been the biologist's first job. George had determined that filters were needed, due to high traces of minerals Shipley couldn't remember, plus unidentified microorganisms that might—

  What did any of that matter now! Shipley pulled out his comlink.

  In their desire for simplicity, New Quakers didn't usually carry comlinks. But Quakerism had always been a more flexible religion than outsiders imagined. Individual conscience counted more than rules, and Shipley was one of a few dozen physicians for five thousand people. He carried a comlink so patients could contact him quickly, just as he used a computer to aid in diagnosis. The point was not to turn one's back on technology, as Larry Smith's Cheyenne were attempting to do, but to subordinate it to the living souls of men and women. This was the first time Shipley had ever used his comlink for a personal reason.

  He didn't know Naomi's private code, if she had one. Of course she did. But he knew the code for Private Mueller, a young man even more silent than most of the Swiss security people. Shipley keyed in the code. Mueller answered instantly.

  "Ja. Private Mueller."

  "This is William Shipley. May I speak to Naomi Frayne?"

  "I key you." Another shrill.

  "Yes?"

  "Naomi? This is your father."

  "Ah, Daddy. Just noticed your derelict daughter is gone?"

  Shipley said, "Why didn't you tell me you were going to camp by the alien village?"

  "Why don't you tell me that you care one way or the other? I won't believe you, of course, but you can tell me anyway."

  He contained his despair. "Naomi, what are you doing there? Ingrid Johnson says there could be a chance of contracting parasites or microorganisms from—"

  "Tell you what, Daddy, if I get alien fleas I promise not to bring them around to you."

  He said nothing, the familiar hurt and frustration and guilt swamping him. Oh, Naomi—

  Her voice unexpectedly softened. "You won't believe this, but I'm actually working. How about that, Dad?"

  "Working?"

  "Observing. Making notes on the Furs. Seeing if we can find their communication mode with each other and maybe decode it."

  "Naomi, you don't know anything about—" He stopped. Wrong, wrong.

  "Anything about anything, is that what you were going to say, Daddy? Poor untrained useless Nan. But this work consists mostly of sitting still, watching carefully, and running recording equipment. Startling as it is, I can actually do that as well as a trained baboon."

  He said humbly, "I'm sorry. Are you ... is the work interesting?"

  Again her voice warmed unexpectedly. "It is interesting, in a hopeless sort of way. Your worthless daughter might even end up making a minor scientific contribution."

  "That's wonderful, honey." He wanted to ask her about Scherer, about why the captain had brought her there, but he was suddenly afraid of jeopardizing this temporary, unhoped-for rapport. "Take care of yourself."

  "You, too, Dad. Bye."

  She cut the link. Shipley stood staring at the comlink in his pudgy hand, then out at the curve of the river through the tranquil purple land. He saw neither. Was it possible that Naomi ... if she actually found something constructive to do ... might she also find her inner light?

  Joy filled him. Shipley closed his eyes. Even though he knew it was premature, was unearned, was in fact ridiculous, he gave himself to the sweetness of grace and relief.

  "Doctor?"

  Jake must have followed him from the meeting. Shipley opened his eyes and smiled.

  "Doctor, you're out beyond the perimeter. This area hasn't been disinfected."

  Shipley said, "Jake, have you ever thought a situation was hopeless and then suddenly some completely unforeseen door opened out of it? A door you had mistakenly thought led only to more disaster?"

  To Shipley's surprise, Jake turned his back and walked abruptly away.

  7

  He shouldn't have done that. He hadn't ever done anything that revealing before.

  It was this planet, Jake thought. He tried to walk casually back into the meeting, as if he'd merely gone to use the toilet. Which must be what everyone assumed because Gail kept on talking without even glancing at him. Did she think Shipley, too, had had a sudden bladder emergency, as if the two of them were some sort of urinary clones? Who knew what Gail thought. Who cared.

  Jake cared. He made himself sit down, look interested, get himself in control. Usually that was easy. It wasn't the planet that was fucking with him. It was Shipley.

  Gail tended to dismiss Shipley as a rich, harmless religious nut, the nuttiness inexplicably coupled with unusual skill as a physician. Jake had tried to view Shipley the same way. But something about the man disturbed him. Some quality of perception, of penetration.

  "Have you ever thought a situation was hopeless and then suddenly some completely unforeseen door opened out of it? A door you had mistakenly thought led only to more disaster?"

  Jesus Christ, Shipley hadn't been talking about Jake! He knew that. But he had stalked off stiffly anyway. There was no better method of suggesting guilt. He, Jake, was a platinum fool.

  Gail said, "Jake? What do you think?"

  He said, not missing a beat, "I think we need to consider all the implications before we make a decision on this."

  Gail nodded, just as if he'd actually said something. Faisal bin Saud said, "Yes, that is what I have said all along. If we—" Jake tuned out again.

  He looked across the room at Lucy Lasky. In profile, her small face looked even more serious. Her thin arms, bare to the elbows, stirred him. She leaned forward a moment and her fine brown hair, cut to the angle of her delicate jaw, swung over her face and then back. She nodded at something Gail was arguing forcefully.

  Lucy, Jake imagined himself saying, there's something I need to tell someone. I've kept it secret for fifteen years, and it's the entire reason any of us are on Greentrees in the first place. But now that we're here—that I'm here—the momentum is gone. I've lost the inertia that kept me moving forward, and the secret is going to crush me.

  "—sixteen percent of energy from water power by—"

  "—down to one millionth per part and then—"

  "—geothermal energy tapped into successfully so we can—"

  You must know what it's like to teeter on the rim of fear. I suspect you live there all the time, Lucy. Why is that?

  "—jurisdiction should fall to—"

  "—agreement we made prior to the vote held for—"

  "—greenhouse space allotments according to—"

  Lucy, I did something genuinely heinous. And got away with it. Should that matter now, after so long, so far away from Earth? Everyone involved is long dead. Why does it still matter to me?

  He would never say it. Not Jake Holman, Jake the successful, Jake the smooth talker.

  "Jake, do you agree with Faisal?" Gail asked.

  "I think he's raised a really interesting issue," Jake said, "but I'd like to hear a bit more about that last aspect before making up my mind."

  "Good point," Todd said. "You always cut to the heart of things, Jake."

  Three days later in the late afternoon, Jake sat at his computer, accessing data in the ship's library. Very little of the Ariel was left in orbit, or left as a ship. After everyone had been awakened and transported downstairs, and all the gear shipped down as well, cannibalization had begun. Everything went as planned, in itself remarkable. Whole sections of the Ariel had been brought down, controlled by thrusters and parachutes. Those sections were now functioning hydroponic vats, genetics lab
, infirmary, water filtration equipment, and half a dozen other structures.

  One chunk of the vast ship, however, remained in orbit. It included orbital defenses, sensors, and the main library. With the comlink satellites in place, the library could be accessed, copied, added to from any terminal on Greentrees. What it could not be was physically destroyed by activity on the planet, natural or human.

  Jake said, "Quee-link data. Non-solar system. Most recent."

  "Accessing," the terminal said. "Spoken, on-screen, or printout?"

  "On-screen. Translate all to standard English."

  Quee-link messages were short; they required considerable energy. Someday the Ariel would stop transmitting. Of the ships in orbit around other colony worlds, one, the Phoenix, had already ceased. Whatever had happened to the quee, neither Earth nor the other three worlds would ever know about it. A settled colony might have the energy to run a quee, but hardly the elaborate manufacturies to build a new one.

  Quee reports appeared on-screen from the UAF vessel, the Winston Churchill, and from the Chinese ship, the Good Fortune. Jake scanned them, slowed by the computer's strange translations of Chinese, a cross-cultural software problem never really solved in a hundred fifty years: Population now sixteen thousand of souls in successful spirit ... Heaven makes water system crisis not chronological...

  He was looking for what was not there. No sentient life had been discovered on either Avalon or New Hope. Nor did either contain any new information about developments on Earth.

  Ingrid had composed her momentous quee message to Earth about the Greentrees Furs. The message, a model of compressed data, had been sent two days ago, after approval by the Board of Governors meeting in special session. Quee still had the power to awe Jake. Instantaneous transmission, thanks to the quantum entanglement he didn't understand at all, across sixty-nine light-years of space ... to be received by whom? What was Earth like now, seventy years after the Ariel had left her?

  The message had been addressed, like all their quee messages, to the World Governance Alliance based in Geneva, a body of useful figurehead value and no actual power. The answer had come back an hour later, in English: