CROSSFIRE

by Nancy Kress

  "Fuck this!" Naomi screamed. "Fuck it! So what if I killed him there was enough other killing going on, all the time, stupid fucking Cheyenne it wasn't my Furs' fault ever—"

  "My" Furs.

  Gail said quietly, "No, it wasn't the Furs' fault. Nor yours. God, you must be exhausted, Nan."

  "I'm fine, don't try to coddle me! And I never said it was my fault, you can't guilt me like that or not guilt me by saying you are..."

  She went on, but Shipley heard her voice slow down, heard it drop in pitch until it was almost inaudible. Occasionally he heard Gail's soothing tones, also inaudible. He didn't dare turn around to look.

  Just before they reached Mira City, the backseat fell completely silent. Slowly Shipley twisted his big body. Naomi lay asleep in the curve of Gail's arm. The older woman held her protectively, despite Naomi's gagging stench. When she felt Shipley's gaze, Gail raised her eyes. In them was a puzzled wonder.

  "She really cares about them," Gail said. "The aliens. She really ... cares."

  Shipley was unable to answer. He saw Naomi, filthy and maimed, in Gail's arms. He saw Naomi, a cooing infant, cradled in the arms of her dead mother. He saw Naomi, a laughing toddler, in his own arms. He saw Naomi, manacled and shouting obscenities, struggling forcefully in the barely restrained arms of a court bailiff. Shipley could only shake his head.

  "I agree with her about the violent nature of the universe," Gail said, and even through his grief and anger and relief, Shipley registered that Jake stared stonily ahead.

  11

  Gail sat at a meeting of her disputatious, high-minded family and tried to concentrate on the discussion, which concerned home-steading by Rick and Amali.

  The question of land ownership, which was intimately tied to the question of capitalism, was a complicated one on Greentrees. For three years, by contracts signed by all colonists, there was no individual ownership of land except for the subcontinent set aside for the Cheyenne, who agreed to confine themselves to it for the next hundred years. That should be no hardship; the area was huge. The rest of the planet's largest continent was held in trusteeship by Mira Corp.

  For three years, everyone but the Cheyenne were theoretically required to live in Mira City. This was the estimated length of time needed to establish a working relationship with the Greentrees ecology. By keeping everyone close at hand and proceeding carefully with the necessary scientific studies, Mira Corp hoped to avoid loss of life to poisoning, crop failure, natural disaster, and territory fights. More important, Greentrees would be protected from damaging exploitation before her ecology was understood.

  After three years, sections of land would be assigned, using the satellite maps, with much area set aside as public parks and much as wilderness preserves. One equal section of land would be given to every adult, drawn by lottery. These could be homesteaded, mined under close regulation, or sold to each other for whatever the market could bear. Ecological standards would prevent any land use that was determined to present "significant ecological danger," as determined by a board of ten elected officials. Anyone who didn't choose to homestead was free to stay in Mira City, and enough land had been allotted within "city limits" for considerable expansion, everything but initial "inflatable-use properties" buyable from Mira Corp, which in turn was required to use the monies to pay for police protection, roads, water and sewage facilities, and other municipal concerns. These, however, were to be kept to a minimum. Child education, medical help, and cultural behavior, including neighborhood upkeep, were to remain the responsibilities of individuals or individual groups.

  "In other words," Jake had explained years ago on Earth, "we're going to start out as a commune crossed with a scientific research station, and end up as capitalism crossed with frontier community spirit. All underlaid with libertarian contracts." No one had the slightest idea if this confabulation would work. No one could think of anything better.

  So far, which was less than six months on Greentrees, the system had worked fine, at least in part because Greentrees had turned out to be an even more benign and fertile place than anyone had hoped. Also, of course, it had been only six months. Still, there were problems. Gail and her family were looking at one such problem now.

  In addition to its broad outline, Mira Corp's charter included many amendments and exceptions. One of these provided for people who wished to leave Mira City before the three years were over. They had two choices: live elsewhere but understand that they could not own the land, no matter how much they developed it, or move to an entirely different continent, across an ocean. The second wasn't really feasible. The shuttle, skimmers, and rovers all belonged to Mira Corp.

  "We know we won't be establishing a permanent home," Rick Sibley argued. "But we want to do ecological work at some other place besides here. It's a big continent, people, and not homogeneous! Specifically, Amali and I want to work on the coast—here."

  Gail peered at the continental map that brightened the wall-screen. Damn, she was going to need another corneal adjustment soon. Getting older was not for cowards.

  A red dot burned along the western coast, where a river from the nearby mountains joined the sea. Rick said, "Detail," and a smaller map of the area appeared. He began to talk about ecological niches. Gail tuned out.

  She was an anomaly among the extended Cutler clans, the Sibleys and Statlers and Richmonds and deBeers. For two centuries they had produced scientists, organic industrialists, and passionate Earth advocates (and look how much good that had done them). Rick was an ecologist who had held a post at Harvard; his beautiful Malaysian wife Amali had a Ph.D. from Oxford on marine life computer models. Gail had a degree in business. Science, to her own early horror, bored her.

  She'd outgrown the horror, and the shame that followed it, largely due to the scathing perspective Lahiri had provided. The world—any world—needed administrators to support its scientists and do battle with its ecological exploiters. Gail knew she was good at it, as long as she didn't have to absorb extraneous details.

  She wasn't being good at it at this moment, however. She was too preoccupied with Nan Frayne.

  Gail prided herself on her judgments of people. They were pragmatic judgments, and she utterly lacked Jake's manipulative finesse in moving people around like so many chess pieces. But usually she was pretty sharp in assessing a person's basic capabilities and limits. She had judged Nan Frayne as a waste of oxygen, a spoiled whining piece of crumpled tissue, with about just that much durability or practical use. She'd been wrong.

  "So I think Amali and I should go there," Rick concluded. The vote of the family board was nearly unanimous, only Paul deBeers dissenting: "There's enough work here before anyone goes out hotshotting someplace else." Uncle Paul had always been cantankerous.

  "Now, about Aunt Tamara," Sydney Statler said. "She fell and broke her hip and we need to have more nursing care than just the medic 'bot because..."

  When the meeting was finally over, Gail walked toward Dr. Shipley's house. Halfway there she stopped, turned around, and went back. So what if she'd been wrong about Nan Frayne? Did she, Gail, have to be right every single time about every single thing?

  " 'Hubris'—isn't that what Lahiri always used to accuse you of?" How had Nan known that?

  It didn't matter how. Damn the bitch anyway. Gail had better things to do.

  "Mr. Holman. Ms. Cutler. I need to see you."

  Gail hadn't heard Rudolf Scherer come up behind them. She and Jake stood arguing with Robert Takai, Mira Corp's energy engineer, beside the half-finished dam across the river. It would create the reservoir to supply Mira City.

  "I told you, Jake," Takai said heatedly, "that we need double the capacity you want. Water reserves—"

  "We can't, Rob," Jake said. "I told you, the ecological study says 'Take this much and no more.' Maggie's team—

  "Mr. Holman. Ms. Cutler. I need to see you."

  Gail said, "Not now, please, Captain," but Jake apparently heard something in Scherer's
voice that Gail did not.

  "Is it important, Captain?"

  "Very important."

  Takai made an exasperated noise, somewhere between a sigh and a snort. Gail and Jake followed Scherer out of Takai's hearing. The area around the dam site was a mess of excavated soil and rock, heavy 'bot machinery, an extruder monotonously producing carbon monofilament cable. The construction crew's clothing lay strewn about; they'd removed it in the noonday heat. The ecotech's water-sampling console hummed, unattended. Two women argued fiercely over some detail of software interface for the dam backup computer. Wildflowers had been trampled underfoot.

  Scherer said, "There is a ship in this star system."

  At first Gail thought she hadn't heard correctly, that Scherer had said, "There is a slip in this star system." She'd almost answered, "What kind of a slip?" when Jake said levelly, "A ship?"

  "Yes. It is detected two hundred AUs out by the all-sky search which we maintain for the large-blue-shift objects. Its trajectory brings it to Greentrees in sixty-eight hours. It is—"

  "Whose ship?" Gail burst out. "From Earth?" It was possible that in the seventy years since the Ariel had left, Earth had launched another ship to Greentrees, with a faster drive. That was actually provided for in international law; the first country on a planet had claim only to the first continent it colonized. But Earth had been in such horrendous condition when the Ariel left, had been disintegrating so fast ecologically, politically, economically ... and then there'd been that last quee message, about what should have been the shattering news of sentient alien life: WGA disbanded. Geneva under siege. Cannot help with alien invasion. Proceed at discretion.

  Scherer said, "I think the ship is not from Earth."

  Gail and Jake gaped at him.

  "I think," Scherer continued, and now even Gail could see the tremendous tension he was holding in, at what cost she could only guess, "that it is some other thing. The ship moves at eighty percent of c, and—"

  "So it isn't coming here," Jake said, relief in its voice. "After all, Captain, when the Ariel reached ninety-nine percent plus of c, we immediately had to start decelerating. This ship, if it's two hundred AUs out, can't possibly decelerate from eighty percent fast enough to stop at Greentrees."

  Scherer said, "It decelerates, by our preliminary estimates, at roughly one hundred gees."

  Silence.

  Jake said, "That isn't possible. Unless ... oh, then it's robotic. Unmanned."

  Un-aliened, Gail thought, and suppressed an insane desire to giggle.

  Scherer said primly, "We think yes, but we do not know for sure. The current rate of deceleration brings it to a halt at this planet. I advise we take all the possible precautions."

  Gail blurted, "What are those? Do we have a protocol for the arrival of an alien ship?" So it was happening, what they'd talked about as impossible in that other meeting that now seemed unreasonably long ago.

  "Yes, of course," Scherer said.

  My God.

  "The Ariel abbreviation is now empty of personnel," Scherer continued. "I leave her so, but I arm her to the maximum for the remote firing. I suggest a blackout for Mira City, in as many electromagnetic frequencies as possible, and a beacon we place far from Mira City. If the probe or the aliens wish to make contact, they go first to the beacon. This makes the opportunity for the further assessment of the situation. This assessment may or may not include if we try to determine the enemy's immediate intentions."

  Jake said, "They are not 'the enemy,' Captain Scherer. We should not go in with that assumption!"

  Scherer didn't answer.

  Gail said slowly, "It is whoever planted the Fur colonies here, isn't it? They're coming back to check on their exiles or criminal colony or whatever Greentrees is."

  "That's also an assumption," Jake said. "We'll do better if we don't make a priori assumptions."

  Scherer said, "The beacon must illuminate in as many frequencies as possible. It must stand at least a thousand kilometers from Mira City. It must be heavily armed."

  "I think," Jake said, "we need to call a meeting of the Board of Governors. Now."

  The Board adopted all of Scherer's ideas. "We are constrained to do so, since we have none of our own," Faisal said. His usual urbane detachment had vanished. Liu Fengmo had said nothing at all; his smooth brown face creased in concern.

  Dr. Shipley said, "Well, I have an idea. It's one I tried to have discussed before. Captain Scherer, please listen."

  Scherer was already giving orders for transporting material to the beacon site, assisted by a shaken Robert Takai. At Shipley's words he looked over impassively.

  "Who will be at the beacon to greet the aliens?" Gail blinked. She hadn't even thought, hadn't even considered— Scherer said instantly, "No one must wait at the beacon. The remote human presence only."

  "I'm sorry," Shipley said, "but that isn't acceptable." Gail and Jake looked at each other. What the hell— Jake stepped in. "Acceptable to whom, Doctor? What are your thoughts on this? I do want to remind you, however, that this is not your decision."

  "It's partly my decision," Shipley said. His forehead glistened with sweat. "Please, Jake, Gail, Faisal, Fengmo ... we need to discuss this."

  "We do indeed," said George Fox, currently the science representative on the Board. George, uncharacteristically, had said nothing throughout the first part of the meeting. Now he was again coming to life, although still pale. "This may be the first human contact with aliens at our own level of technology, or better!"

  Gail said quickly, "Captain Scherer says there can't be any life aboard, not at a deceleration of a hundred gees." The idea of superintelligent aliens made her feel panicky.

  "Not life as we know it," George said. "But who knows what's on that ship? Captain, can you tell how big it is?"

  "No," Scherer said. "Not yet. No one must wait at the beacon site. It is too great the risk. A telepresence is sufficient."

  Scherer's unbending orders were beginning to annoy Gail. They must have had the same effect on Jake because he said with sudden irritation, "This Board meeting is still in session. Sit back down, everybody, except for you, Robert. Keep on getting that stuff to the beacon site. All right, there's a motion to discuss human presence at the beacon site. Captain Scherer has disagreed completely. Dr. Shipley, what is your thinking?"

  Shipley spoke carefully, consciously choosing his words. "We did not expect to find the Furs here, but we did. Human contact with the second Fur village has cost the Furs many lives. Our scientists, at least most of them, think the Furs came from somewhere else besides Greentrees. These new arrivals, whether they're on that ship or only represented by some sort of telepresence, may have some connection with the Greentrees Furs. It seems logical to think they do, unless we posit Greentrees as some sort of galactic crossroads, which doesn't seem likely.

  "We've killed some of these beings' members, or pets, or experiments, or whatever they may be. Maybe they can detect that before they land. Maybe they already know it, through the cessation of some signal or something from here. Also, the beings will undoubtedly realize that our beacon site is heavily armed. We will be giving every possible indication that our intention toward them is violence.

  "Is that really what we want to do? Before we even meet them?"

  He makes sense, Gail thought, and resented it.

  Scherer said, "We wish to tell them that we are able to make a defense."

  "But, Captain," Shipley said, with what looked to Gail like a desperate patience, "how will they know it's a defense and not an incipient attack? It presents to them only violence."

  "Assuming they perceive things as we do," George said. "They might not. They might not even be able to be communicated with, for all we know. Life takes diverse and strange forms!"

  "George, you sound like a textbook," Jake said, but nobody laughed.

  Shipley said, "Someone must be at the beacon site, in person, to offer peace. To at least look peaceful. Unarmed, open. I offer my
self, on the grounds that everyone else here is necessary to Mira City."

  Gail said sharply, "You are chief physician for Mira City, Doctor. For another two and a half years."

  "But you have many other physicians. There are no other leaders of Mira Corp besides you, Jake, Faisal, and Fengmo. We Friends, remember, don't have leaders."

  "I want to go with you," George said abruptly.

  Scherer began, "No one must—"

  "I'm a biologist," George said. "I may be able to spot ways to communicate with them, based on knowledge of different life forms, that—"

  Jake said, with sudden violence, "George, you haven't been able to communicate with the aliens we've already got. The only one who succeeded at that is Nan Frayne."

  A little silence followed his words.

  Liu Fengmo spoke for the first time. "I think Dr. Shipley is right. He should go to the beacon."

  Scherer said, "It is too great risk. A telepresence—"

  They argued about it for another half hour. Gail said little. It was amazing how she could already predict how the voting would go. Was it because the outcome they were going to get was the best possible one, or because everybody was coming to dislike Rudolf Scherer's unbending self-righteousness? God, not the latter. Let them all be more rational than that.

  She studied Liu Fengmo. The Chinese were the least troublesome contingent on Greentrees. There were only 539 of them, all from the same neighborhood in Redlands, California, UAF. When the Ariel launched, about half had been recent immigrants from China, slipping through some loophole in both countries' constantly shifting administrative policies.

  China had been badly battered by Earth's ecological ills: violent weather patterns and global warming and various bio-disasters. Liu's people, both Chinaand UAF-born, were the kind who survived by playing possum, meek and nearly invisible in the interstices of urban life. Used to having almost nothing, Greentrees seemed to them a cornucopia of riches handed to them by Liu, whom they revered less like a patriarchal philanthropist than some sort of minor god. They had followed him unquestioningly to Mira City, a polite and silent retinue who worked hard and played little, at least publicly. Gail seldom saw Chinese adults after the workday ended. They stayed with their own inside their ugly little inflatables. Even their children were quiet and controlled.