CROSSFIRE

by Nancy Kress

  "That's the consensus," Gail said.

  "Dad, don't drink it!"

  Shipley took another sip, then finished his cup. He smiled apologetically at Nan. "We have to eat, dear heart."

  "I don't." Nan turned her back on them.

  "It could have poison," Franz said.

  "Franz," Dr. Shipley said, "we may be here a long while. You must eat sometime, and this is what there is."

  The soldier only stared at him impassively. Gail started to say, "If we—" when Nan interrupted her.

  "Gail! The quee's on!"

  The quee had been left at the edge of the infirmary, as far as possible from Vine's translator. Although, of course, the other, closer Vines may have been able to hear anyway, or do whatever they did and transmit the news throughout the entire hothouse. Gail shot a warning glance at Shipley, Nan, and Franz: say nothing revealing. When she saw from their faces that they understood, she took the quee tablet from Nan.

  It felt strange to be holding the tablet that, aboard ship and skimmer, had been fixed to its finite power source. But otherwise the quee's tech seemed the same. It buzzed softly to announce a message, its light glowing red. She slid back the tablet cover, holding the screen at any angle close against her body in an attempt, possibly futile, to keep any Vines from seeing the message. What would they "see" it with? With something, presumably, since they "saw" humans. Thermal signatures, maybe.

  Quee messages themselves didn't emit thermal signatures, although the equipment did. The messages were fleeting fluctuations of quantum-entangled particles. The information was captured and stored for a long time, at least in the incredibly brief temporal measures of the quantum world, before anything appeared on screen. The Furs had entangled this one with a quee of their own, and apparently they had solved any translation problems. English letters appeared in glowing green.

  Are you aboard enemy ship?

  Gail opened the reply button. Transmission was by an alphabetic code. She tapped. Yes.

  The screen blanked.

  Aloud Gail said, as steadily as she could, "Our families back home send their hellos."

  Somewhere in the tangle of alien foliage, Lucy screamed.

  The infirmary was at the opposite end of the circuitous path from the sleeping blanket-island. By the time Gail reached it, behind Franz and Nan, everyone else was already there, crowding onto the three-blanket space amid the slime. No one looked frightened, and Lucy had stopped screaming.

  "It climbed on me," she said, eyes wide.

  Then Gail saw it. A thumb-high human clambering around everyone's feet. No, not human, but ... but what? Gail stayed on the path, unwilling to get any closer. The tiny thing started to climb George's leg, pulling itself up by his plentiful hair. It had at least chosen the right person; George cupped his palm under the creature and gently picked it up.

  For the first time ever, Gail saw the biologist speechless.

  The two-inch-high creature did look human, or at least more human than anything Gail had seen in aliens. It was symmetrical, bipedal, with a recognizable head. The head had eyes and a hole that might have been a mouth. True, instead of arms there was a single long, flexible, sticky-looking tentacle coming out of its chest, and it had no genitals. But the proportions were the same as a human's, the skin looked soft and light brown, and all Gail could think of were the childhood stories her nurse had read her about fairies and elves.

  The tiny thing chittered at George. "Hello," George said experimentally, but he got no answer.

  "Look!" Ingrid said. More of the creatures were emerging from the foliage. Gail saw a broad, fleshy "leaf"—or hand or whatever it was—open at the base of a Vine. A chitterer ran out. The things swarmed near the humans.

  Franz, his face set, pulled back his leg to kick one away from him. Jake said sharply, "Franz!" and the soldier settled for a firm push.

  "Gail, let me by," George said. "I need to ask Vine about these!" The creature in his palm still chittered at him, looking completely unafraid.

  Everyone trailed George to the main island, where he demanded, "Vine! What is this?"

  Vine said, "Those are our mobiles."

  An echo sounded in Gail's mind, something Nan had told her that Beta had said: "You are all mobiles, are you all mobiles? We think yes. Mobiles must run and walk and go. On our world our mobiles do not talk. They do not sit together with us. We love them as mobiles."

  "Mobiles," George said. "Are they ... can they think? Analyze?"

  "They do not need to analyze," Vine said.

  "Oh." Even George seemed at a loss. Finally he said, "Are they a part of your life cycle? Will this mobile become a Vine?"

  "No."

  "Was it once slime?"

  "We were all once slime," Vine said, and Gail saw from George's face that this cleared up nothing. A dozen of the creatures had run onto the blanket and were trying to climb the humans. Franz pushed his away, stood, and stalked back to the infirmary.

  Vine said, "They are curious. They will taste you. Then they will return to their work."

  George clearly saw this as an opening. "What is their work?" Vine said expressionlessly, "It is time for us to make love."

  Gail stood and edged her way through the sitting crowd to the path. Vine and George were obviously settling in for another long conversation, and everyone except Gail looked fascinated. Even Nan sat with a chittering mobile on her palm. Whatever her revulsion for Vines and slime, this third being had evidently engaged her interest. Almost Gail could understand; the thing looked even closer to humans than Furs did, and unlike Furs, they responded rapturously to being stroked.

  Dr. Shipley sat up in the infirmary. Franz sat at the opposite edge of the blanket, staring at nothing.

  "Doctor? How are you feeling?"

  "Abnormally well, thank you. What is happening over there?"

  "Some tiny creatures have appeared that Vine calls 'mobiles.' It says they're part of their mating process."

  "Really!" Shipley looked as interested as Nan. Gail sighed. Was she the only one who didn't care how, when, or if the Vines fucked themselves? Which was apparently what they were preparing to do.

  "I think I can stand," Shipley said, and tried. He crashed back onto the blanket.

  "Stay quiet. You're not well yet," Gail said crossly, before she remembered that she was talking to a doctor. Shipley smiled painfully.

  "Yes, my dear. You're right. It's just that I feel so extraordinarily well after the Vines' ministrations. I want to ask how ... but I can do that later, and hear about the mobiles later, too."

  Franz said violently, "Tell the plants to keep those things off me, or I crush it. Tell them."

  Gail stared. Franz did not apologize. Instead he said, "Nobody here remembers Mira City."

  "I do," Gail said softly, and felt a sudden bond with the furious soldier. Everyone else was caught up in the mysteries of alien biology. Gail didn't understand. Mira City was never out of her thoughts, not for one minute. If Jake and Karim and George couldn't succeed in destroying the Vine shield after they landed on Vine, it would be Mira City that would be destroyed. Five thousand human lives, including Gail's family. Plus everything she had worked for, believed in, staked her life on for fifteen years.

  "I think about Mira City," she said, knowing she couldn't say more without compromising Jake's plan. But it was enough. Franz looked at her and nodded, mollified.

  Shipley, however, was studying them both, all the acuity and perception restored to his keen old eyes.

  27

  Shipley came late to the discussion of mobiles, and had to piece together knowledge from what the others said, and from what he could observe. He told himself that he was medically interested, knowing that he was only distracting himself as long as he could.

  No one willingly faces pain and betrayal.

  So he studied the mobile that sat happily on his massive leg and marveled at the infinite variety of the universe.

  The mobiles were pollinators, or s
omething analogous to pollinators. They ran around from Vine to Vine transferring "pollen" on their sticky tentacles. The Vines produced some molecule that gratified some desire in the mobiles, although not food. George said, "Terran plants do the same thing, you know. Domesticated species, anyway. They've taught us to grow them, protect them, even engineer and hand-graft them, by gratifying our desire for the beauty and scent of flowers. We're just bigger, smarter bees." He paused. "Or bigger, smarter mobiles."

  Naomi said, "Why don't they just drop pollen on themselves?"

  "Self-pollination wouldn't mix the genes enough. Lots of Terran species have evolved ways to avoid self-pollination. Some make their ovule and pollen grains chemically incompatible. Others stagger the times when their stamens produce pollen and their pistils are receptive. Sex has great evolutionary advantages."

  "Sex?" Naomi said, looking around for Gail, who wasn't there. "Vines are male and female?"

  "Not necessarily," George said. The mobile on his palm tried to jump off, and he lowered it gently to the blanket. It ran off into the foliage. "You can have sex without different genders."

  "I know," Naomi said, and Shipley kept his face still. She wasn't beyond wanting to disturb him.

  "We call those gametes 'female' that retain other DNA-bearing organelles like mitochondria," George said, warming up, "and those gametes 'male' that don't. But maybe Vine gametes don't contain such organelles. They don't even use DNA."

  Vine said, "I don't understand those words."

  Before George could explain, Shipley said quietly, "I have another thought. If Vines mate by pollination, then any organism can be the carrier of any other organism's genes. Maybe that's why they never evolved to kill. It would be like killing your own offspring."

  Naomi looked suddenly angry. Jake stared hard at Shipley, evidently thinking that he should not have mentioned any prior knowledge of Vines' pacifism, or anything else about them. George looked impatient, as if Shipley had carried the discussion offtrack.

  But the Vine said, "Yes. Of course. We die, but we do not understand killing. Our enemy kills."

  Jake said, still glaring at Shipley, "What enemy? What are you talking about?"

  Shipley lumbered to his feet. He was not wanted here. And he could no longer distract himself from the decision he would have to make soon.

  He walked gingerly along the path to the infirmary. It was empty except for Franz. Gail had gone to the sleeping island, finally exhausted enough to sleep. Franz had discovered that the mobiles would not come onto the infirmary island (had they been "told" not to by the Vines?) and now spent all his time here. He still refused to eat, as did Naomi. At the moment the soldier lay on the infirmary deeply asleep, his magnificent body finally as relaxed as a child's.

  Shipley sat down, bent his head, and closed his eyes. He tried to clear his mind, but the image of Beta would not leave.

  "This is our death flower, William Shipley. Will you give it to other Vines so that Beta will grow again?"

  "Grow again. Beta?"

  "Yes." Beta said. "The death flowers of all Vines are safe on the secret planet. The death flowers will grow. They have grown two times. They can grow three times."

  Jake said incredulously. "You swore a deathbed oath to an alien?"

  "New Quakers don't swear oaths," Shipley said. "Our word should always be good."

  And Shipley's word had not been. The Furs had destroyed Beta's death flower, vaporized it as thoroughly as they had vaporized the gentle Vine itself. And now Shipley was compounding the lie by not telling these shipboard Vines, who had rescued and trusted humans, the truth that might save their planet.

  Shipley, under Jake's direction, had become one of the people inside a Trojan horse. Deceive the enemy by pretending to be something other than what you were. Slip in behind his defenses. Destroy from within the walls.

  Except that the Vines were not the enemy. By his silence, Shipley was helping to destroy friends. But if he was not silent, the Furs would destroy Mira City.

  "The truth is the way, and the way is the truth," early Quakers had said, and not only Quakers. How did that quote from Plato go? "Truth is the beginning of every good thing." No good things could result for the Vines if Shipley did not tell them the truth.

  If he did tell them the truth, at least five thousand humans would perish.

  If he didn't tell them the truth, there would be no chance of finding a better solution, one that might save everyone. And in addition, Shipley's own life and his faith would be a sham. "Let your life speak," he had smugly told Lucy, so long ago on the Ariel. A life must speak truth.

  He could not speak the truth. Around and around it went, until Shipley's head ached and his eyes burned. He reached for his cup and drank the nourishing food provided by the Vines. He lay down in the rescue ship provided by the Vines, breathing the sweet helmeted air created for humans by the Vines, and tried to sleep. But still the question wrapped around his tired mind, strangling it, and no answer came.

  "They're slavers," Naomi said angrily. "How can you doubt that?"

  "I think there's more than one way to look at it," Gail said neutrally.

  Shipley lay still. He had the sense that he had been asleep a very long time. Something in the food, or just the exhaustion of an old body recovering from injuries? Gail and Nan sat at the edge of the infirmary blanket, talking in low voices. Franz Mueller had gone; Shipley was alone with the two women. Naomi looked terrible: gaunt, with deep hollows in her cheeks. She had eaten nothing for ... how many days had they been aboard this ship? Shipley didn't know. Behind Naomi loomed two large motionless Vines, unhearing. Perhaps unhearing.

  Naomi said, "There's no other way to look at it! These fucking plants have enslaved these little mobiles, keeping them imprisoned in leaves until the Vines need their services as walking pricks! What else would you call that but slavery?"

  Shipley heard Gail's effort to keep her voice neutral. "The mobiles don't seem unhappy."

  "Oh, fuck, Gail, since the beginning of time there have been 'happy' slaves who didn't know better, in every culture that ever practiced slavery. You know that. It still isn't right."

  "They're not human. You can't apply human judgments to alien biology."

  "You know," Naomi said slowly, "it wasn't until just this moment that I realized you're a bigot."

  Then Gail did lose her temper. "The hell I am! I'm just being reasonable. The mobiles are not just tiny human beings, no matter what they look like. They may not even be sentient. Nobody else is indulging in this brand of self-serving anthropomorphism!"

  "Franz agrees with me."

  "Oh, marvelous. A rebuilt who's getting more xenophobic every hour. Did you see him slash at that Vine when a frond accidentally brushed his leg?"

  Naomi was silent. Shipley thought, Slash? With what? If Franz Mueller was showing signs of the same paranoia that had unbalanced Rudy Scherer and Erik Halberg, then Shipley needed to know about it. He tried to get up but a great lethargy seemed to press on his body.

  Gail said, "Nan?"

  "I don't want to talk about it." Naomi got up and stalked off.

  "Well, I do!" Gail said. "I'm sick of your melodramatic exits on the supposed moral high ground!" She leaped to her feet and followed Naomi down the path.

  Still Shipley couldn't seem to move. The vast room was quiet now. The dense biomass, or something else, deadened sound; voices from the other two islands didn't reach the infirmary. Nor did the Vines make any noise. And Shipley heard no chittering from the mobiles—did that mean that had all gone back inside what Naomi called their "plant prisons"?

  Then Shipley did hear something.

  The sound came just as the grogginess at last left his limbs and he could move again. A faint sound, thin but clear; perhaps it carried only because it was pitched so much higher than human speaking voices. A sweet sound, sharply evocative of another place, another time, another vastly different circumstance.

  Karim Mahjoub was whistling the rond
o from Beethoven's violin concerto.

  Beta, listening to Karim whistle Strauss and then Mozart. "It brings light to my soul."

  Light.

  Shipley sat up on the coarse blanket. He had made his decision.

  It was not an easy decision to carry out. He needed to be alone with Vine, the alien with the translator. No one knew whether the other Vines could hear, or understand, anything of human-Vine interaction. Perhaps they all, as one entity, shared everything. Perhaps not.

  From three to eight humans usually occupied the main blanket-island, beside the airlock. Franz never went there, but George never left. The biologist even slept beside the translator, not on the sleeping island. "I don't mind the rest of you talking, I can sleep through anything," George said. What he meant was that he didn't want to miss anything.

  Shipley joined the fluctuating group beside the translator. He needed to observe Franz, but the rebuilt would have to wait. This was more important.

  "You're awake," Lucy said kindly. "Welcome back, Doctor. How do you feel?"

  "Fine," Shipley said. "How long was I asleep?"

  "Two days. Vine said you needed to heal."

  Two days! No wonder Naomi looked so starved. Jake, too, had lost weight and looked hollow-eyed, although Shipley knew he was eating. Jake looked haunted by something unconnected with food.

  That, too, would have to await more observation. For now Shipley needed to get Vine alone. But Vine never was.

  George and Vine talked about molecule formation.

  Ingrid, Vine, and George talked about genetic heredity.

  Jake and Lucy pointedly did not talk to each other, a silence as loud to Shipley as accusations.

  Karim whistled until his lips ached from puckering.

  Naomi appeared seldom, but Gail darted back and forth between the infirmary and the main island. Another quee message, she announced, from "home," and in her voice Shipley heard the anguish that Vine, presumably, could not distinguish or interpret.

  George and Vine talked about species evolution.