CROSSFIRE

by Nancy Kress

  Jake left, came back, sat quiet as death.

  Karim and Vine talked about the physics of the star in Vine's home system.

  Finally, Shipley could wait no longer. He had no idea when the ship would reach its destination, or what would await them there. Nor did he know how long the Furs would wait before deciding the humans had reneged on their "bargain." Every minute mattered.

  He rose ponderously. Lucy looked up at him. He said, "I think I should check on Franz," and walked off the main island, down the narrow, slime-free path toward the infirmary.

  The path wound through clumps of Vines, patches of writhing slime. For perhaps a third of its length, the path was out of sight of both the main island and the infirmary. Shipley stopped at a secluded spot, beside a group of four Vines growing close together. He put his hand on the trunk of the closest one, not knowing if this was necessary to get its attention. Not knowing anything.

  "Vine," he said softly, "this is William Shipley. I don't know if you can hear me, or detect me in some other way. I must talk to the Vine with the enemy translator. I must talk alone, without my fellow humans. It is very important. Please."

  Shipley waited. Nothing. The being under his hand felt slick, coated with some version of the biofilm on floor and walls. A flashy "leaf" touched his wrist, perhaps merely blown by the slight breeze that was a constant in this strange place. Maybe even if the creature couldn't understand Shipley's words, it could pick up a sense of urgency from the chemicals in his palm.

  "Please," he whispered again.

  Nothing.

  But when he went back to the main island, uncertain what else to do, everyone present had stood up in excitement. George, Ingrid, Jake, Lucy, Karim.

  "Look, Doctor!" Ingrid said. "A new path!"

  The slime was parting in a different direction. It moved slowly, half a slither and half a creep, creating another foot-wide ribbon bare to the floor. The new path disappeared into a grove of exceptionally thick, tall Vines. For a moment Shipley was afraid. What had he done? Images of the carnivorous plants of Earth, of red creeper on Greentrees, crawled through his mind.

  George said with elation, "Vine says it has something completely new to show us about its culture!"

  "Go now," Vine said in its flat, expressionless voice, and George didn't wait to be told twice. He charged down the new path, followed closely by Ingrid and Karim. Jake went more slowly, and when he did, Lucy started down the older path to the sleeping island.

  "I'll see it later," she told Shipley in a constrained, unconvincing voice. "Too crowded." She tried a smile, failed, and set off toward the sleeping blanket.

  Shipley was alone with Vine.

  He sat down and began, hands locked together in front of him, and even though he whispered, his voice sounded loud in his own head.

  "Vine, we ... I must tell you a new thing. New, important information. Very important.

  "We have known some of your people before. One gave me his death flower to take to you, so that you could put it in the secret library of genetic samples and it could grow again. But the Furs destroyed the death flower before I could bring it to you, and I am so sorry."

  The Vine said nothing. There was no way to judge its reaction. Even so, Shipley felt his voice grow stronger and his heart lighten, lifted by the conviction that this was the right thing to do.

  "We humans knew a group of Vines who came to our planet. They came to check on the experimental colonies of your enemy— we call them 'Furs'—that you had left on the planet. Not the planet where you found us, but your other colonies. Furs in a spaceship destroyed those colonies, and the Furs destroyed the Vines who came, and the Furs carried us to the planet where you found us. They told us to do a terrible thing. We are doing that terrible thing. We have not told you about it before. We have lied to you."

  Shipley had saved that word for last: "lied." He had no reason to think that the Vines understood it.

  "We told you things that are not correct, Vine. We said our fellow humans had made us leave our planet. That is not correct. The Furs brought us away. They put us where your ship would find us. They wanted you to take us to your ship. They wanted you to take us to one of your planets."

  Shipley paused. At this point in his story a human, any human, would have said "Why?" Vine said nothing. Looking at its alien shape, at its flesh that was neither flesh nor wood nor chitin, the strange possibly intelligent slime coating it, Shipley was not thrown by its silence. He was saying truth, and from that only good could ultimately flow.

  "The Furs wanted us to be on one of your planets. They want us to be under the shield you have created around your planet, the shield that captures their ships before they can attack you. The Furs told us to destroy the shield. If we do not destroy the shield, the Furs will kill all the humans left on our planet. Five thousand humans in one city, another thousand elsewhere. We lied to you to save our humans. We agreed to destroy your shield. But that is not the correct thing to do. The correct thing to do is to tell you the truth, and together we can make a plan to save your people and mine."

  Shipley stopped. His heart was beating so fast he thought he might faint. He made himself take deep, calming breaths. Vine said nothing.

  Hadn't it understood? Beta had seemed to understand so much! Was this Vine even now destroying Shipley's fellow humans, out of Shipley's sight and hearing, in retribution? Naomi ... Why didn't the alien speak? Oh, God, had Shipley's vocabulary been too advanced, his sentence structure too complex? What did the thing think it had heard?

  "Vine," he said desperately, "do you understand what I've said? Do you?"

  The alien said, "What is the new information?"

  Shipley gaped at it.

  "I do not understand what is the new information, William Shipley. This is not new information. Jake Holman told us all this information before."

  "That's right, Doctor," Jake's voice said quietly behind Shipley. "I told them all that information before."

  28

  Ludicrously, irrelevantly, Jake wished he had a vidcam. The look on Shipley's face...

  The respite was only momentary. Breaking in on Jake's amusement was the anguish again, the anguish he would carry forever. Shipley had told the truth to the Vines, but so had he, Jake. Now Mira City would be murdered. No, not now, but soon, when the Furs finally figured out that the humans were not going to destroy the Vine shield from within because the humans were never going to be "within."

  "They're not going to take us to any of their planets, Doctor," Jake said. "They're not fools."

  Shipley stared at him, and then at Vine, as if he expected it to speak. It didn't, of course. Vines only spoke when they had something to say. Yet another thing that differentiated them from humans.

  Shipley said quietly, "Why did you tell, Jake?"

  "Same reason you did. To secure their help with some über-plan that will save everything."

  "That wasn't my reason," Shipley said.

  Nor mine, Jake didn't say. He didn't know what his reasons were, anymore. Expediency, hope, truth, cynicism, Lucy ... It was all mixed up in there somehow. God, he was tired. It had been so long since he slept well.

  Shipley said, "But you did tell them. You told Vine about the Trojan horse and—"

  Jake sensed the attack before he actually felt it. Mueller behind him, standing on the path that led to the infirmary. Jake had half turned when Mueller grabbed him and spun him around the rest of the way.

  "You! You tell them! You murder Mira City! Scheisse!" Jake felt Mueller's fist slam into his stomach, and then he couldn't breathe, no air was coming into him, only fire, his body was on fire—

  Something yanked Mueller off him.

  Jake collapsed, gasping, in more agony than he'd thought possible. From the corner of his eye he saw Mueller wrapped around with a ... a vine. Two vines. Tendrils from Vine, tangling him in strong alien living ropes.

  But Mueller, augmented, was stronger. With a roar he broke free of Vine and stompe
d on the broken tendrils. It was the stomping that saved Jake's life. In the long moment it took before Mueller again launched himself at Jake, something happened. Jake still couldn't breathe and he sensed himself losing consciousness, but not before he saw Dr. Shipley grab Mueller's left ankle. The rebuilt hadn't expected anything from Shipley; Mueller was off balance. Shipley's desperate tug tripped him. Mueller fell sideways and landed facedown beside the edge of the blanket.

  He was only down a few seconds. With terrifying speed he leaped up, but in those few seconds his helmet had dissolved on contact with the ground slime. Mueller's face was smeared with slime. Wildly he tore at his skin, but his face, too, was dissolving. In Jake's pain-filled vision, the flesh, the eyes, the mouth of the rebuilt, were being eaten away ... everything went black.

  When he came to, air again filled his lungs. His torso ached but no longer burned. Gail hung over him, holding a cup. "You're back. Good. Drink this, Jake, I'm tired of dribbling it down your throat. No, don't move, damn it, you've got three broken ribs. Just drink."

  He did, spilling half of the liquid over his chest. Almost immediately the ache in his body eased. Cautiously he turned his head. He lay on the main island. George sat beside Vine, but no one else was present. Jake could see the raw places on Vine's trunk where the thick tendrils had been ripped off.

  "Mueller?"

  "Dead," Gail said somberly. "George says it was probably a version of the same compound they used to dissolve their dead fellow back on Greentrees."

  Greentrees. Another life.

  George said, "Vine made you that painkiller."

  "Vine?" The alien had killed Mueller. We don't kill, it had once told him.

  George misunderstood Jake's question. "Vine will be okay. He can regenerate limbs, you know. It'll just take a while."

  "And your ribs will be fine, too," Gail said. "Dr. Shipley bound them, and you're supposed to move as little as possible." She hesitated. "He blames himself, Jake. Apparently he tripped Franz and Franz fell into the ... he fell. Shipley considers that he killed Franz."

  "And so blames himself for saving my life," Jake said bitterly. Shipley's view was irrational. The fall had not killed Mueller; the slime had. "Does Shipley think it would have been better if Mueller killed me?"

  "I don't know what he thinks," Gail said. "I never did. But he said that both you and he told Vine about our plan. That isn't true, is it?"

  "It's true." She stared at him flatly. "Then I wish Franz had killed you. You've destroyed Mira City."

  "Gail," George said softly.

  Suddenly she wailed, "Why? Oh, God, Jake—why?"

  The same question Shipley had asked. Before he could begin to answer, she slapped him across his helmet so hard that his head rolled to one side and pain shot through his ribs. "There!" she screamed. "I attacked Jake, too! So dissolve me, you alien bastard!"

  "Gail!" George said. He rushed to grab her. "Don't!"

  "I don't care, George! He's murdered them all, everybody in Mira!" She started to sob.

  Vine said, "Wait."

  Instantly George let go of Gail. "You're talking to us again!"

  Jake, ribs still hurting, managed to say, "It hasn't—"

  "Not a word," George said. "But he did make you the painkiller so I hoped—"

  "George," Vine said, "be quiet, please."

  Jake had never heard a Vine give an order. Or even a request, and which was this? In the toneless voice of the translator, it was impossible to tell.

  George stood still, expectant. Silent tears rolled down Gail's cheeks. Jake lay on the rough blanket. Everyone waited.

  Finally Vine spoke. "We will bring the other humans back now. We will talk to all humans together. We have an idea."

  An idea. The alien had an idea. Jake struggled to sit up. Gail didn't help him, or even look at him. Nor did George, whose entire attention was on Vine.

  The path to the infirmary was still clear, but the new path, the path to the "new thing" Vine had offered to show everyone, had vanished. When had that happened? As Jake watched, the path slowly reappeared. The slime crawled back from both sides. The slime. Jake tried not to recall Mueller's face.

  George said to Jake, "The path closed after we got to the new bio event. It was ... never mind, it doesn't matter. You'd already gone back. I think Vine hadn't counted on that; he wanted to keep us all away as long as Dr. Shipley needed to talk privately to him. But you overheard Shipley, didn't you?"

  Jake nodded.

  George continued, "After Franz attacked you, Vine brought just me back. Shipley was ... is ... well, you'll see. Vine wanted someone to explain to. Then I went to the infirmary and got Gail and Nan."

  Jake said, "Where's Nan now?"

  "With her father. Vine, do you want Dr. Shipley and Nan here, too?"

  "All humans," Vine said.

  All humans left alive, anyway.

  "I'll get them," George said.

  As soon as the path was wide enough, Karim and Ingrid and Lucy came thundering down it. Ingrid demanded, "What happened? My God, Jake, what did you do to Vine?"

  Gail said bitterly, "Gave it a pruning."

  "What—"

  "Shut up," Gail said. "George will be back in a minute. He'll explain."

  "Gail, you're crying," Lucy said. Gail turned her back to everyone.

  Karim said firmly, "I'll get George." He disappeared at a run.

  Jake closed his eyes. He wished he could go to sleep. He wished Franz Mueller had succeeded. Mira City...

  "We are all here," Vine said. "We will sit in shared silence."

  "Not now," Jake heard himself saying loudly. "We're humans. Vine, not ... we can't wait like you can. Tell us your idea!"

  A pause long enough to cause madness. Then Vine said, "Okay."

  Jake opened his eyes and found himself looking straight at Shipley. The old man was ashen. He looked somehow collapsed, as if his great bulk had fallen in on itself. God, if this was what faith could do to a man as punishment for saving a life, then Jake was glad to be agnostic.

  Nan hovered beside her father, her bones sticking out like chisels under her thin skin. Gail still had her back to everyone. Ingrid, outraged, said, "Will someone please tell us what the hell happened?"

  In a low voice, George filled in events for her, Karim, and Lucy. Great, Jake thought, now everyone knew everything. Always good to have an informed jury.

  Vine said, "We have an idea. This is our idea. We can save Mira City. We can save our planet. We can make no more killing."

  "How?" Nan demanded. "How in the fuck can you do all that?"

  Vine told them.

  "No!" Nan screamed. "You can't!"

  Jake said, "I'll volunteer to go first. Vine, get started. Now. Do me first."

  He was energized. There was a plan. Or maybe his energy came from the drink Vine had made for him; Jake was beyond caring where the energy came from. For the first time since leaving Greentrees, Jake felt hopeful. So did Karim, George, Ingrid, Lucy, and Gail, although Gail's hope had an edge of hysterical fear that Jake didn't like. She had never trusted any alien, and now the entire plan depended on the most alien of them all.

  That left Shipley and Nan. Neither would agree.

  Jake had never understood Shipley. The New Quaker was still torturing himself over Franz Mueller's death, as if it had been Shipley and not Vine who had killed the rebuilt. And now Shipley was tossing around inflammatory words like "genocide."

  "We're not going to kill the Furs," Jake explained for the third or fourth time. "We're only going to make them less dangerous."

  "Castrate them," Nan said furiously. "That's what it amounts to!"

  "No," Jake said. "George, I haven't got time for this. Explain to them."

  "I already explained," George said.

  "Then do it again!" Jake strode off the main island toward the infirmary, where Gail kept the quee. As he left, he heard George say, "They'll be happier than before, the Vines said so, and isn't happiness the goal of lif
e anyway?"

  "No," Shipley said. "It isn't."

  Shipley was right, Jake thought, although not in the way he thought. Shipley meant that the goal of life was some sort of spiritual attainment, some inner peace. Jake knew better. The goal of life was survival. Happiness was an incidental side effect. If this plan worked, everyone would survive. Humans, Vines, even Furs.

  Unless something went wrong. The best way to guard against that was to plan carefully for all contingencies. And no one was better at planning than Gail.

  She already had the quee on her lap, although she hadn't activated it. She was, he guessed, mentally envisioning what she would send, revising and compressing. Ingrid was with her. Jake said, "Where's Lucy?"

  Ingrid said, "Vine wanted her somewhere. It opened a special path for her and closed it up afterward." Ingrid's voice held resentment: Why Lucy and not her?

  Some things never changed.

  Jake said, "How could Vine tell Lucy it wanted her somewhere?" The only translator remained on the main island.

  "It opened a path and a tendril wrapped around Lucy's hand and tugged at her," Ingrid said. "Not by force," she added hastily, seeing Jake's face. "Lucy didn't have to go. She chose to go."

  Franz Mueller, his eyes and flesh dissolving ... But Jake couldn't think that way. He had to trust the Vines. There was no other choice. "Did the Vines take Karim, too?"

  "Yes, but in a different direction."

  To wherever the bridge was, Jake thought. Karim was going to get a crash course in flying a Fur ship. If that was possible. It should be—after all, the Vines flew Fur craft, and they didn't even have eyes.

  To Gail he said, "I want you to get Shipley and Nan back here in the infirmary so I can talk to Vine alone."

  Gail said flatly, "Nan won't go anywhere just because I ask her. She thinks that what we're doing, what Vine is doing, is nothing more than experimenting on advanced species for purposes of genocide. No better than what the Liberation Science Rebels did in Dakar."

  Jake said, "Yes. That's why I want to talk to Vine without her."

  "Why do you—"

  Ingrid interrupted Gail. "Jake, I don't think you have to be beside the translator for Vine to hear you. Dr. Shipley must have asked it to get us all out of the way so he could speak to Vine alone, and he must have done it someplace else than the translator because that's where we all were."