CROSSFIRE

by Nancy Kress

  Jake said that history argued that the next generation would be much different. Gail was not concerned with the next generation; her interests lay here and now.

  George said, "Nan Frayne should go to the beacon site, Jake. She's the only one who's communicated with any Furs at all."

  Jake pulled at the skin on his face. He must, Gail thought, be much more agitated than he looked. "How badly was she hurt by the Cheyenne, Dr. Shipley? Can she travel?"

  "She should not," Nan's father said quietly. "She has sustained contusions, a minor fracture, and malnutrition. In addition, she is still ... excitable."

  Gail looked at him sharply to see if he seemed to be conscious of ironic understatement. He didn't.

  "I agree," Jake said, and Gail heard the relief in his voice. Nan was always a wild card; Jake already had too many of those in this hand. "And she hasn't learned very much of the Fur language, anyway. What she did say is that the two groups have different languages, so perhaps the starfarers have yet another one, unless..." He didn't finish his thought. Gail suspected he hadn't had any coherent ending in mind.

  It was finally decided that William Shipley and George Fox would be at the beacon site, if and when the aliens, if there were aliens, landed there. The contact, if there was a contact, would be surveilled by the others at Mira City. The attack, if there was an attack, would be repulsed by one of Captain Scherer's soldiers, who would accompany the greeting committee. The alien examination of the Ariel, if there was an alien examination of the Ariel, would be—

  Gail gave it up. Too many variables. No, too much tension.

  She went to draft a nonthreatening announcement to Mira City that they were expecting company.

  12

  He had lied to the Mira City Board of Governors. No, not lied ... just left out a piece of the truth. There was no way to tell it to them, no way they could hear it just now.

  Shipley sat in the main room of his new house, hands on his knees, head bent. This room served primarily as a gathering place since most dining was, at this stage of the city's growth, still communal and heavily dependent on ship's stores. No private kitchen facilities had been installed anywhere outside the medina. No one minded; most colonists were thrilled to have any private place in which to sleep, relax, and arrange the few precious possessions brought from Earth. The inflatables had begun to be superseded by permanent foamcast buildings. Shipley's had been one of the first constructed because it connected to the "hospital," a much larger structure than the house, dominating it like a looming round hill beside a polished boulder.

  The foamcast furniture was sturdy, unadorned, and sparse. The circular walls bore no art. New Quakers made their own decisions about how much color and decoration they wished in their homes, but the basic principle of simplicity, nondistraction from the spiritual, held. Two bedrooms and a bathroom, all opening off the main dome, completed Shipley's house. Through one closed door he could hear faintly the murmur of Lucy Lasky's voice as she visited Naomi, still confined to bed. When Naomi had finally let her father examine her, he'd found two broken ribs, contusions, and cuts over much of her torso.

  How could Shipley have told the Board the exact truth? How could he have said, "My daughter took a human life. I am troubled in my mind over this. My responsibility is personal. There must be no more violence between humans and aliens, and I must act to see that there is not"?

  Jake and Gail would not have understood. In their world, the acts of grown children were not the responsibility of their parents. They divorced how a child was raised from how she acted afterward—as if you could bend a twig west for years and then complain you didn't have an east-pointing branch!

  But his responsibility for Naomi's act would still have been easier for Jake and Gail to accept than Shipley's other reason for going to the beacon site to meet the aliens. I have been guided by the Light of Truth to give a testimony for peace.

  They would think he was crazy. Their opinion wouldn't matter, but it would matter that they wouldn't have let him go. And he must go. He must do what he could to prevent any more violence. A call from the Light was not merely a private belief; it was a call to action.

  Gail came in without knocking, a good measure of how agitated she was. With her came a gust of sweet evening air. Shipley heard the faint cry from the medina of an imam calling the faithful to prayer. The notes floated in, drawn out and somehow plaintive, until Gail closed the door behind her. "Doctor, have you told Nan about the beacon and the ship?"

  "No," Shipley said, "and I asked Lucy not to tell her. Lucy's in there now." Another spiritual problem; it was wrong to withhold the truth from an adult. But if Naomi knew that more aliens were coming to Greentrees, she would insist on being there, despite her injuries or Jake's orders. Shipley had just got his daughter back. He didn't want to lose her again to another group of strange beings. Or, more accurately, to her own strange impulse to join them.

  "Good," Gail said, nodding. "I think it's better she not know yet. Can I ... can I go in?"

  Gail's attitude was oddly diffident. Why? Shipley found himself too distracted to concentrate on the question. "Yes, my dear, go right in."

  "Hello, Gail," Lucy said. Naomi said nothing to Gail but went on talking to Lucy. Gail left the door open, and Shipley heard his daughter's voice sounding too high, too fast for the painkillers he'd given her. She was speeding along on older, more systemic endorphins.

  "And they've combined the best of hunter-gatherer with domesticated crops. Lucy, they're so much more advanced than the passive Furs we first discovered that you wouldn't believe it. They make jewelry. Back in the woods, they're carving an enormous stone statue of a god—at least, I think it's a god—and they press oil out of those little bluish berries and store it in clay jars. My old Furs couldn't do any of those things."

  "My old Furs."

  Lucy said thoughtfully, "The two groups have had maybe a thousand years to differentiate themselves. It only took a few centuries for the original settlers in Polynesia to develop societies at different levels of advancement on different islands. Tonga had sophisticated art, weapons, and social organization. All Chatham reached was primitive handheld clubs. But, Nan, that was due to different environmental conditions on different islands—minerals and food supply and soil fertility. Both sets of Furs that you lived with have exactly the same resources available to them."

  "Except," Naomi said excitedly, "the passive Furs have George Fox's brain virus."

  "Maybe," Lucy conceded, "but even if it is a virus that developed early on, the whole tribe would have died out by now, given how little they can care for themselves. And if developed recently, the tribe should already have more art, agriculture, and toolmaking. It still doesn't add up."

  "Maybe," Gail said, "the virus got progressively worse."

  Naomi said contemptuously, "What do you know about it?"

  "More than you think," Gail retorted, and Shipley's breath caught. Was she going to tell Naomi about the new aliens? But no, Gail didn't lose control like that. She asked Lucy, "Have you told her about the third group of Furs, the ones that look permanently intoxicated on some sort of native plant?"

  "Not yet," Lucy said. "Nan, don't try to sit up! Your father said to stay flat!"

  "The fuck with that! What third group of Furs?"

  "I brought you pictures," Gail said.

  A long silence. Shipley got up and moved toward the bedroom. Naomi sat up in bed, studying the printouts intently. Finally she raised her head and looked at Gail. Something passed between the two women that Shipley couldn't read, some intense look that led Gail to speak.

  "Don't ever talk to me in that tone again, Nan."

  And Naomi, incredibly, said softly, "I won't. I'm sorry."

  Shipley felt dizzy. What had just happened? He saw again the image of a just-rescued Naomi on the skimmer, filthy and maimed, asleep in the curve of Gail's arm. Despite the gagging stench, the older woman had held Naomi protectively. When she'd felt Shipley's gaze,
Gail had raised her eyes, and in them had been a puzzled wonder.

  Now Gail's gaze was locked with Naomi's. A long moment spun itself out, taut as piano wire. To Shipley's astonishment, Naomi suddenly smiled, a smile so humble and sweet that it didn't seem to belong on his daughter's face. When had he ever seen Naomi smile like that? He had never seen Naomi smile like that.

  Gail said, "I've just made an executive decision, Nan. There's something we weren't going to tell you, but I think that was wrong. You have a right to know, and we may need you. Not now, but farther down whatever road it is we're going to be traveling. We may need your ability to communicate with Furs.

  "An alien ship is on its way to Greentrees. It will be here in less than forty-eight hours."

  Just before the skimmer left for the beacon site, Captain Scherer made one more try at changing the plan. "This is wrong," Scherer said, his jaw hard as diamond. "It is a mistake."

  Shipley, Jake, Gail, George Fox, and Lieutenant Halberg turned to him. They stood beside the skimmer, outside the electronic perimeter of Mira City. The settlement had been shut down as much as possible. No lights shone, no construction machinery clanged or hummed. Within the walled medina, the new minaret soared silent and empty. No children ran through the rest of the unpaved streets. Shipley realized that for the first time in months he could hear the river without standing directly beside it. It swirled around the half-finished dam, babbling and singing.

  Jake said, "Why is this a mistake, Captain Scherer?"

  Gail snapped, "We already know the captain's opinion."

  Jake said mildly, "Let him have his say, Gail."

  Scherer surprised Shipley by speaking with something close to passion. "There is on Earth a long history of the small military force that defeats the much greater one—but only if the small force acts quickly, to retain the element of the surprise. One example: at Cajamarca, Francisco Pizarro, with 168 Spanish soldiers, conquers the Incan emperor Atahualpa, with a force of 80,000 soldiers. How can Pizarro do this? He takes the emperor prisoner before the Incas can assess the Spanish as enemies. The same thing occurs over and over in the human history, and we must learn from this. Our optimum strategy is to take these aliens prisoner before they can assess our strengths, and next we use the prisoners as some bargaining points with the force on their ship."

  Jake said, "You're assuming that we're going to be in an adversarial position with the aliens."

  "I do not know if we will be so or not, Mr. Holman. Nor can you know. But it appears they do some experiments on some sentient life. That is why the best tactic is to prepare."

  Shipley said, "Prepare for what, Captain? Prepare for war and you will surely get war. Prepare for peace and there is a chance it may come."

  Scherer didn't even glance at him.

  Jake said, "You're saying we need to prepare for the worst possibility."

  Gail cut in. "Jake, we don't have time for you to go through your people-handling skills of agreement and persuasion. We just don't have time. Captain Scherer, you have your orders. Now let's get moving."

  Scherer appeared to have heard Gail no more than he had Shipley. His eyes stayed fastened on Jake, whom he clearly regarded as the true authority here. Gail flushed angrily.

  Jake said, "I think we better stick to the original plan, Captain," and Scherer's face went, if possible, more wooden than before. "But I do appreciate hearing your views."

  Shipley, Halberg, and George Fox climbed into the smaller skimmer. As it lifted, Shipley saw the others heading toward the bunker newly built for the telepresence equipment. Jake and Gail would hear, see, practically smell everything that happened at the beacon site, and they could project their holos there if necessary. Although Shipley couldn't imagine what circumstances might make that necessary.

  He bent his head, closed his eyes, and tried to clear his mind to silence. George Fox made this impossible. The biologist seemed unacquainted with the solace of quiet.

  "I wonder about Scherer sometimes, Doctor. The military mind. See adversaries everywhere, and you create them. See potential allies and you might create them."

  Never had Shipley been so unwilling to hear the New Quaker philosophy voiced by an outsider. Lieutenant Halberg in the pilot's seat in front of them—was he sitting even more stiffly than before?—leveled the craft twenty feet above the ground. Shipley stared at the back of Halberg's head without answering George.

  "Take plants," George rattled on, oblivious. "The plants in any given ecosystem risk being eaten by the animals. Sometimes, it's true, plants develop defensive mechanisms like toxins or odors that discourage herbivores from eating them. But just as often, plants have developed evolutionary strategies to form alliances with animals. Verbena provides hummingbirds with nectar, and in return the hummingbirds unwittingly crossfertilize the plants by transferring pollen. Or take the cocklebur, Xanthium strumarium..."

  George was evidently the sort of person who subdued nerves by chatter. Shipley thought of quoting to him his Quaker namesake: "Listen to the still small voice within." He decided against saying this.

  "Or consider the lowly dandelion—"

  The beacon site was four hundred miles northwest from Mira City. On a rising swell in a high flat plain, Robert Takai's robots had assembled a low tower of foamcast laced with extruded carbon monofilament cable. The tower pulsed a short sequence of prime numbers from an array of electromagnetic devices in wavelengths not excessively absorbed or scattered by the atmosphere: visible light; infrared, reflective, short wave, and thermal; microwaves; and radio waves. It drew power from a nuclear generator underground. Also underground was the computer. A monitor sat around the bunker, with sensors hidden in the area to transmit audio and visual. At the base of the tower stood a small bunker of foamcast shielded with lead.

  Lieutenant Halberg landed the skimmer, dropped off Shipley and Fox, and then flew the skimmer a mile away, setting it down behind a low rocky ridge. Shipley had a moment of panic: what if Halberg just left them there and didn't come back? But of course he didn't. A few minutes later they saw him come into view, running over the purple groundcover. He was amazingly fast. Augments, undoubtedly. Not for the first time, Shipley wondered about the ages of the Swiss security team. Their bios and cell samples both indicated middle age, although all of them, thanks to genemods, looked younger. Usually it was the young who became adventurers.

  But, then, Shipley himself was here, wasn't he?

  "There it is," George said suddenly.

  Shipley shaded his eyes with his hand and peered in the direction of the sun. He could see a faint glowing dot in the sky about thirty degrees east of the sun. "How much longer till they get here?"

  "Projected time is twenty minutes."

  Halberg disappeared into his tiny bunker. What did he have in there? Shipley wondered. Scherer had made a trip last night to the newly completed bunker. "For the safety check," he'd told Jake.

  Twenty minutes was a long time.

  What was Naomi doing? Resting in bed, Shipley hoped, but he doubted it. She had worked on Gail to let her join the Board in the Mira Corp's bunker, a larger version of this one, where they monitored the alien landing. Shipley didn't know if Gail had agreed, but he suspected she had. From her willful, completely unauthorized contact with the Furs, Naomi had built a sort of special, semi-authorized standing for herself with the Board. And, perhaps, with Gail as well.

  Ten minutes.

  Shipley thought of Naomi Warren Bly, founder of the New Quakers, for whom his daughter had been named. Naomi Bly had written in 2008, "No one knows how another person may come to the Truth of the Light. Treat each other with as much tolerance as your conscience allows." But how much tolerance was too much? And did Shipley's confused thinking at this very moment on this very point apply to Naomi, Gail, Scherer, or himself?

  His knees felt wobbly.

  Five minutes.

  George Fox said, "Something's wrong. They're not coming in. We should be able to see more by now." />
  A second later Jake's voice sounded in the receiver implanted in Shipley's ear: "They're not coming in. The space data show they're moving at slow speed toward the Ariel. Could be docking speed."

  Shipley and Fox looked at each other. George, of course, spoke first. "A party without the guests. Now what?"

  The sky blossomed into brilliance, and back at Mira City, Jake and Gail started shouting. Shipley, leaning for support against the bunker, tried to understand what was happening. Finally, with horror, he did.

  "Captain—" Gail screamed.

  "Oh, my God—"

  "Mueller—"

  "No! No!"

  Captain Scherer had not waited for the aliens to board the Ariel and learn about humans, thus destroying any tactical advantage of surprise. Scherer had destroyed the Ariel instead, hoping to take the alien ship with it. If Rudolf Scherer had had his way, Pizarro would never even need to meet Atahualpa to defeat him. The smaller outnumbered force could do it by remote nuclear explosion.

  13

  Jake threw himself at Scherer, yelling something he could never remember. The soldier turned. Jake saw the blow coming directly at his gut and tightened his stomach muscles, frantically trying to shift to the side to absorb the punch with his obliques. It must have worked because although he felt fiery pain, Scherer's gene-augmented blow didn't kill him. It did send him flying into the bunker wall. He hit the back of his head against the bunker, and waves of red and black washed over him. He shook his head to clear it and tried to stagger at Scherer again. Gail had picked up something small and heavy—what? Somehow Jake couldn't identify it, although he knew somewhere in his reeling mind that it was something ordinary, something he should recognize—and she tried to bash Scherer with it. He tossed her away as easily as a pillow. Gail slid down the bunker wall and lay still.