CROSSFIRE

by Nancy Kress

  "You know the rest, Lucy. And now you know it all. You're a pretty pure and idealistic person yourself. Can you still say you love someone who's done what I did?"

  He couldn't see her face. She was silent, and in her silence Jake saw why he'd told her. Not because of Beta's deathbed request to Shipley, that Shipley had the damned gall to pass on to Jake. Not so that someone knew the truth about Jake before he died. Not even to test Lucy's emotion for him. No, he'd told her in order to destroy that emotion. And then you won't love me anymore. And he would be free of the burden of living up to it.

  "Lucy?" he said gently, almost caressingly. Still she didn't move or speak. And then Gail had reached them, oblivious, organized, officious Gail, shining her flashlight into both their faces and saying, "Hey, you two shouldn't be out here alone in the rain. Is something wrong?"

  "No, Gail," Jake said wearily. "Nothing's wrong except that we're caged in the rain by enormously powerful war-crazed aliens intent on genocide. Other than that, things are exactly as they were before."

  22

  Shipley woke stiff in every muscle, even though he'd lain on the cushioned inflatable floor in the only dry shelter. It took him a while to crawl out and stand. He flexed his knees and then his shoulders, which helped not at all, and felt in his pocket. It was still there.

  Gail had given him a waterproof, e-sealed plastic box the size of his palm to keep Beta's "death flower" in, replacing the pathetic wrappings of Greentrees groundcover. Shipley didn't know what she'd dumped out of the box to free it. Whatever it was, Gail would have efficiently stored it somewhere else. She stood now directing breakfast, which was being cooked over the portable heater. Maybe there wasn't enough dry wood after the rain. The sky was still overcast.

  Everyone else seemed to be up and doing something. Shipley looked for Naomi but didn't see her. He headed for Beta.

  The little Vine's cart stood beside a curve of the invisible wall. After much discussion, humans still had no idea why one Vine had been left alive, even if only temporarily. For future torture, if necessary? Shipley shuddered.

  Nor did he know how to tell if Beta were awake, assuming the Vine had any other mode. Beta had talked of "dreaming," but Shipley didn't know if that referred to sleep, meditation, or some unknowable alien state.

  "Hello, William Shipley," the translator said in its flat voice.

  "Good morning, Beta."

  "Sit with us in silence, William Shipley."

  He'd brought his stool. Pressing the button to inflate it, Shipley lowered himself to the plastic and bent his head. His stomach rumbled but he ignored it.

  Silence. Peace.

  He wasn't sure how long he sat there. He was not moved to speak. Beta was.

  "William Shipley, we die this day."

  "If the Light chooses," he said, because he had to say something.

  "Death is sadness to us."

  "But only sadness," he said, and this time the words were not simply to fill the space. Something moved in Shipley, deep and heartfelt, and he closed his eyes in gratitude.

  "Yes," Beta said. "The death flowers will grow. They have grown two times. They can grow three times."

  "So you told me last night, Beta."

  "You must tell Jake Holman."

  Shipley opened his eyes. "Tell Jake about the gene library? Why?"

  "The Furs may kill you, William Shipley. They may kill all humans. Or they may kill some humans. You are not like us. You are like our mobiles. You are like the Furs also. The Furs have a leader, one who speaks first. You have a leader, one who speaks first. If they leave any human, they will leave the leader. Tell Jake Holman about the death flowers. Tell Jake Holman where the death flower planet is. He will return our death flower to us."

  It was the longest speech Shipley had ever heard from a Vine. How many of George's "chemical signals" had been required to fuel the translator? Shipley realized that Beta had been preparing this speech all night. How long could the Vine go inside that dome, without outside refueling of ... something? George had guessed that the closed ecosystem might be self-sustaining for a while, but not indefinitely, or all the slime wouldn't have been needed inside the Vines' shuttle.

  He said, "I will tell Jake Holman," and the inner silence, the precious inner peace, vanished. "Beta—"

  "Thank you. We will sit in shared silence."

  There was nothing else he could do.

  They were still sitting there, Shipley and the Vine, when the noise began, mounted, became light in the sky.

  "They're here again," Jake called. "Everyone in!"

  Shipley didn't move. Beta said nothing.

  The Fur shuttle set down where the village had stood. Immediately the ramp opened and all three Furs stepped out. The female walked over to Beta, while the other two strode to the humans, clustered behind Jake.

  Shipley stood. "No, please, listen to me first—"

  The Fur ignored him. She had no translator; to her he'd been spewing gibberish. He took a step toward her but she ignored that as well. There was something in her hand.

  Behind him, Karim began to whistle, sweet and slow, one of the songs that Beta had so enjoyed the day before.

  "Good-bye, William Shipley," Beta said. The Fur fired. The Vine and its little cart disappeared.

  "Good-bye, Beta Vine," Shipley whispered.

  The female Fur waved Shipley toward the others. He stood numbly beside Naomi. The leader said through the egg-shaped translator on the ground, "You. Step here."

  He meant Jake. Jake hesitated, then moved to the place indicated, a few yards from the others. The other male Fur grabbed his arm and began cutting off his clothes with some instrument held in his furry hand.

  "Hey!" Naomi said angrily and leaped forward. Gail tried to grab her but missed. It didn't matter; Naomi hit an invisible barrier. They were caged again.

  Naomi started cursing, a stream of words so foul that Shipley stared in shock. Gail said sharply, "Stop it, Nan! The translator doesn't know those words anyway, so the only one you're upsetting is Jake." Naomi subsided, leaning into the wall, her face a silent snarl.

  The Fur continued shredding until Jake stood naked. Gooseflesh rose on him in the cool morning air. Shipley looked away until the Fur ran a curved dark object over Jake's body, front and back. When he'd finished, the leader said, "What are you?"

  "I am a human," Jake said. He stood with his arms defiantly at his sides, refusing to shield himself. His genitals hung limp and pale.

  The leader swatted him on the shoulder, hard enough for Jake's face to register pain. "What are you?" The question, repeated in the emotionless translator voice, sounded obscene.

  Jake tried again. "I am the leader of the humans."

  Evidently this was what was wanted. The female pushed Jake aside. He lurched sideways but didn't fall, encased in a second of the invisible walls.

  The other male reached toward the huddle of humans. The closest one was Naomi.

  "No!" Shipley cried, in a shrill reedy voice he didn't recognize as his own. Gail's was much stronger.

  "Nan, don't struggle. Do you hear me—don't struggle. You'll only end up dead or maimed!"

  Shipley's eyes blurred. But for perhaps the first time in her life, Naomi listened to someone. She stood sullen but quiet while the Fur cut off her clothing and ran the curved rod over her. It was a weapons' check, Shipley realized. He looked away from his daughter's naked body.

  "What are you?"

  Naomi growled, "I am the messenger for the humans." The female shoved her beside Jake.

  The invisible barrier must open and close when the Furs wanted it to, Shipley realized. Naomi...

  George was next. The middle-aged botanist was slightly overweight, and his doughy body was striped with suntanned and white parts. He stood stoically, not resisting.

  "I am a scientist of plants."

  "I am a scientist of evolution." Lucy, her naked body so thin that her ribs showed below the small breasts. Did the translator understa
nd the word "evolution"? Yes. Lucy was pushed beside George, Naomi, and Jake.

  "I am a scientist of stars and planets." Karim, his hard, brown body barely held in control, something dangerous moving behind the dark eyes.

  "I am a scientist of genes." Ingrid, for once not arguing.

  "I am a soldier." Mueller. Shipley would have expected him to go sooner. Or did soldiers hold back, looking for a chance to attack? If so, Mueller hadn't found it. The rebuilt spoke as flatly as the translator itself. White welts marked the scars on his body where the cloned organs had been transplanted into him.

  Only Shipley and Gail left. The whole obscene procedure reminded Shipley of something, pulled at the edges of his stunned mind. Some point in history, when humans had stripped other humans and forced them to identify themselves, forming lines of those who would live and those who would die ... He couldn't remember. He couldn't think. And there were no lines here, just a clump of naked, shivering people behind a wall they couldn't see.

  Belatedly, Shipley tried to step in front of Gail, but she elbowed him aside. While she was stripped, Shipley watched Naomi. He had never seen such a terrifying look on any human face; he would not have known a human face could look like that.

  "I am an administrator," Gail said. The translator was silent; it had learned English by way of Vine, and Vine was unlikely to include a word for "administrator." The second male slammed his fist into Gail. She staggered sideways and he caught her bruised arm in a cruel grip.

  She didn't crumble. Obviously in pain, she said, "I am a keeper of names."

  Something changed on the leader's furred face, until now as still as stone. His gaze jerked to her. The translator at his feet said, "You are the keeper of names and birds?"

  Birds? Shipley thought he hadn't heard right. But Gail was quicker. She said firmly, "I am the keeper of lists and birds."

  The leader let out the roar he had only before given on first landing. The second male dropped Gail's arm. Then all three Furs dropped to their knees, the powerful balancing tails folded under them.

  The genuflection—if that's what it was—lasted only a moment. Then the Furs were standing again, balanced on their tails. The translator said, "We honor the keeper of names and birds. You may die now, if you choose to die now for birds and the morning sky."

  Gail said shakily, "I do not choose to die now."

  "You will tell us when you choose to die for birds and the morning sky."

  She said, "I will tell you when I choose to die for birds and the morning sky."

  The leader roared again. Gail was led, but not shoved, to the others. Shipley was dazzled by her presence of mind.

  Then it was his turn. He stood quietly, staring at the ground, while the clothing was cut from him. The sudden air on his chest and genitals felt colder than he expected. Shame, primitive and undeserved, flooded him. The curved rod was run lightly over his body, and stopped at his hand. Voluntarily he opened it to show the sealed metal box.

  "I fix broken human bodies," Shipley said. He doubted that "doctor" had been in the Vines' lexicon; with their exquisite mastery of genetics, the Vines probably repaired themselves. "This is my device to fix humans. I must have it to fix humans."

  The Fur took Beta's death flower from him and tossed it onto the pile of shredded clothing. The female raised her weapon and fired, and all of it vanished.

  Beta's genetic identity would never make it to the hidden library. Beta was gone forever. Shipley still couldn't recall where he'd read about the double line of naked prisoners, those to live and those to die, their ancestral lines ended with them. He wished he could remember.

  He wished even more that he had known Beta's actual, true name.

  The nine humans were herded aboard the shuttle. Either it had been built in two sections or it had been altered overnight, because the part they occupied was completely separate from any access to anything else. A featureless half-egg-shaped box, it contained nothing but thick padding on the floor. The temperature was much colder than outside.

  "Cargo hold?" Ingrid faltered. "If it's not pressurized..."

  "They're too smart for that," George said. "Their planet is probably colder than ours. Look at that fur."

  Karim said, "Lie down, everyone. Now. This thing doesn't have a McAndrew Drive, and there's going to be acceleration."

  To fit, they had to squeeze tightly against each other. Shipley found himself between the wall and a red-faced Lucy. She was so tight against him that he felt her small nipples harden with the cold, and then felt himself redden stupidly.

  "Lifting," Karim said, unnecessarily. Apparently the scientists eased their fear by oral reporting.

  A weight slammed into Shipley's chest. He couldn't breathe. His eyeballs burned, and his body turned to lead, and still he could not force air into his lungs. He felt himself on the edge of blackout, and then it was over and he was gasping, his lungs on fire.

  "Not too bad," George gasped. "No more than six gees, and fast."

  Jake said, "Everyone all right? Doctor?"

  "Y-yes," Shipley said, and a part of his mind registered that Jake's voice came from the other side of the tiny cabin. Not from the other side of Lucy.

  Karim sat up. "Gravity. We're not in free fall. How the hell do they do that?"

  Jake said, "Will that gravity burst come again, Karim? Should we stay lying down?"

  Karim said, "I don't see why it would if we're going to dock with the mother ship."

  Jake didn't say to lie down again anyway. Shipley saw why: sitting, they had at least a few inches of space between them.

  But it was cold, so cold. They moved together anyway, wordlessly, shivering. Lucy's slim body felt like ice. Shipley, fatter, estimated his body temperature to be as much as three degrees above hers. He put his arms around her, and in a few minutes they were one mass of flesh, rattling with the bone-piercing cold.

  Fortunately, it didn't last long. A gentle jolt, and the door slid open. The lead Fur and his two lieutenants stood there. Roughly they pulled the humans from the shuttle, which seemed to be encased in a close, dim bay of some kind. They were pushed through a door, which closed behind them. Mercifully, it was warm.

  Another bare room except for floor matting. Two metal eggs sat on the floor. One was a translator, the same one as on Greentrees or a different one. The second, open at the top, was filled with water. The door closed.

  "No food," Ingrid said.

  Jake said, "Is everybody all right?"

  Ragged yeses.

  "Okay," Jake said. "We don't know where they're taking us, or why, or how long the flight will take. But we're not dead yet. That's something."

  No one answered.

  Gail said briskly, "Wherever we're going, we don't have to sit here doing nothing on the way. Karim, didn't you say that this ship had a ... a Somebody's Drive? So that it can accelerate and decelerate really fast and so get between star systems much faster than we can?"

  "Yes," Karim said. "The McAndrew Drive. There's a disk of superdense material that—"

  "Good," Gail said. "So we won't have those gees when the ship leaves orbit?"

  "Shouldn't have. In fact, we may have left orbit already."

  "Good," Gail said, nodding. "Then this floor padding isn't really necessary. Let's see how much of the cloth we can get up and tear or bite or something into strips. Maybe we can make some sort of minimal clothing. We don't know what the temperature will be where we're going. And it will keep us busy."

  Ingrid was looking at Gail as if Gail had lost her mind. But Jake said, "It's a good idea, Gail. All right, let's start."

  "Wait," Shipley said, and his voice came out a high quaver. He tried again. "Wait. Please."

  Everyone turned toward him. He had to be careful. If he called it a meeting for worship, or even a shared silence, no one would participate. There would be noise, chatter, argument, scientific speculation. Would it be untruth to call it something else?

  No. And the need was great.
>
  He said, "Before we start making clothes, could we have a time of silence for Beta? A ... a memorial?"

  He scanned the faces. Jake's full of strain, Gail's impatient. Lucy's and, surprisingly, Karim's soft with sudden compassion. Mueller, impassive as always. Ingrid and George indifferent.

  He didn't dare look at Naomi's. Naomi, with her scorn for him, her unholy glee in causing hurt. He wasn't strong enough just now to withstand her, as he had withstood her her whole life, trying to show her a better way. He was so tired. Beta was dead, and Shipley had failed in the last thing the Vine had asked of him. If Naomi turned her cruelty on him now, Shipley realized with fresh horror, he didn't think he could keep from breaking down.

  Jake said gently, "Of course, Doctor. We can have a few moments' silence for Beta. He was ... he was always gentle."

  Ingrid scowled. Shipley blocked out the sight by closing his eyes and bowing his head. He didn't know if the others did the same, but at least no one spoke. Shipley tried to clear his mind, to clear the way for peace and light, if they would come. It was hard. They were all there, tolerating the silence but not sharing it, impatient to get on with the decisions and actions they relied upon instead. It wasn't a meeting for worship. It wasn't a meeting for anything, not even a remembrance of Beta. It was an interruption he had pushed onto them all from his own arrogance, his own mistaken attempt to give when he needed instead to receive, a futile and pointless imposition that brought no one anything, not even himself...

  Then Karim began to whistle. A moment later Shipley felt the touch of small callused fingers, and Naomi's hand stole into his own.

  23

  Gail didn't know how long she'd been asleep. She was jolted awake by the opening of a door.

  A Fur stood in the doorway, staring impassively at the humans jerking abruptly awake on the ship's deck. A few, hard sleepers, didn't hear the door and slept on, oblivious. The Fur—which may or may not have been one of the three they'd seen before, the Furs all looked alike to Gail—registered no reaction at the bands of gray cloth torn up from the deck matting and now wrapped around human bodies at various points. Most people had simply tied their allotment around their hips, covering their genitals. Lucy and Nan were small enough that their share stretched over their breasts as well, a primitive sarong.