by Nancy Kress
“Do you think so?” Sharon said. She sounded a little more hopeful. “So, they’d keep Tara alive to study her better?”
“I’m sure of it!” Jason said heartily. Privately, though, he wondered. What if what the Panurish wanted to know was how a human being looked inside? But if that were so, they’d have captured and dissected one of the Discovery kids, and they hadn’t.
Sor said, “We’ll just sit here and watch and wait for our chance to get Tara back.”
Sharon nodded. Okay, Jason thought: one person feeling better. Now Sor.
“Sharon, could I talk to Sor alone for just a minute? Sor, come over here with me.”
They moved sideways along the hill. Sor looked awful: bleary-eyed, hollow-cheeked, pale. Jason plunged right in. “Look, I know you feel bad about beating the shit out of Robbie.”
“He deserved it,” Sor said, then almost immediately, “What am I saying? Violence is never a good way to settle conflict! It solves nothing!”
So that was it, Jason thought. Sor was torn between his emotions and his beliefs. The poor dude was trying to feel two different things at once. What could Jason say to him?
“Listen, Sor,” Jason went on. “Personally, I think Robbie had it coming to him. You didn’t kill him.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, I would have,” Sor pointed out despairingly. “I would have committed murder!”
“Yeah, but you didn’t. It worked out okay, and Robbie will be back, bet on it. He’s got―” What was that word the twenty-fourth-century docs kept saying that the Yanks all had? “He’s got grit. And also—" Jason did not know how to say that Dr. Orgel and the big computers must have seen something in the little London guttersnipe to make them reach back in time to yank him into being part of an interstellar mission. "Robbie will get over this and join the team again. You just stay out of his way and vice versa, and we’ll work it all out, one way or another.”
Sor didn’t look convinced. Well, why should he? Jason wasn’t even convinced by his own words. Work it out how? But it was the best he could do at the moment.
He and Sor moved back toward Sharon and Jofrid and sat down. The four of them stared steadily at the Panurish ship. The next move was the aliens’.
Whatever it would be.
Chapter Fourteen
Nothing happened until noon. Then the Panurish ship opened, and a line of the little aliens emerged in the usual strict formation, without Tara.
Sharon jumped up. Maybe she could run inside the Panurish ship while the door was open, grab Tara, and run out with her. But even before she felt Jason clutch her hand and pull her back down on the hillside, she knew the idea was dumb. The second she got closer than forty feet, the Panurish robots would fry her.
The aliens started off on their usual inexplicable march, the door to their ship closed, and Sharon sank deeper into despair.
She didn’t really believe the Panurish would just study Tara. She’d pretended to believe it because Jason so clearly wanted her to, but underneath, Sharon was sure they’d do something awful to her. Dissect her, eat her...who knew?
Sharon shuddered, but she tried not to lose it. If there was any way to get Tara back, she had to stay calm enough to find it. Calm! It seemed to Sharon that she would never be calm again. It seemed like years ago that she’d been talking about calmness with Jofrid, admiring the girl’s unflappability, teaching her that Keats poem praising the calmness of the Grecian urn… Thou foster-child of silence and slow time.
Sharon buried her head in her hands. Thinking of a stupid poem from English class at a time like this! What was wrong with her? She needed to focus all her thoughts on getting Tara back.
The problem was, no chance turned up the rest of the day. The Panurish came, the Panurish went, the Panurish examined the huge pile of equipment stolen from the Discovery, bit by careful bit. But there was no glimpse of Tara.
At mid-afternoon, Jason and Jofrid returned to the Discovery, and came back a while later carrying bags. Jason, Sharon saw, walked more slowly than usual, his hand clapped against his side where Robbie had knifed him.
“Hey, Sharon, how you doin’?” Jason said kindly.
“We brought you some food,” Jofrid said.
“Thanks,” Sharon said tonelessly. She knew she wouldn’t be able to eat.
Jofrid said, “There will be a sign of Tara soon, Sharon. I am sure of it.”
Sharon wished she were as sure. But Jofrid’s presence, the presence of a friend, was comforting. Jason, however, had something else on his mind.
“Listen, Sharon,” Jason said. “Cam said that when she and Deel were on watch here, they couldn’t get as close to the Panurish ship as humans could before. They couldn’t sit on their usual watch hill. Did you try to go any closer to the ship?”
“No,” Sharon said. She hadn’t moved in hours. She tried to rouse herself enough to follow what Jason was saying. “What do you mean, they couldn’t get as close as before?”
“Something weird stopped them. They didn’t know what, but I’m going to find out. Sor, come with me.”
“Walk with care,” Jofrid warned.
Jason and Sor started down the hill toward the Panurish ship. About sixty feet away from it, they stopped, and Jason began to feel the air with the palms of his hands as if there was an invisible but very solid wall directly in front of him. Sor did the same. They reminded Sharon of those white-faced mimes on TV, silently fingering what nobody else could see. Slowly the two moved in opposite directions along a circular “wall” until they met on the far side of the ship. Then they returned to Sharon and Jofrid. Sweat beaded Jason’s forehead.
“Cam was right,” Sor said. “There’s an invisible fence all around the ship. It must be some sort of electronic field.”
“Ask da Vinci,” Jofrid suggested.
“Yeah, I will,” Jason said. “Sharon, did you see the aliens march out in their straight line this morning?”
“Yes.”
“And they just marched on through the electronic fence?”
“I guess so,” Sharon said. “They didn’t slow down at all.”
Jofrid said, “The barrier must be for added protection. They fear us, even though they are much more heavily armed. Fear is always a weakness, my father says.”
Jason said, maybe to distract her, “Sharon, you hear that Robbie is back?”
“He is?” Sharon said. Sor stiffened his back and looked away.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Just before I left to come back here, da Vinci persuaded him to come back to the Discovery. That robot’s the only one Robbie will listen to.”
“That makes sense,” Sharon said. “I don’t think Robbie was too well-treated by people in his own time, so he doesn’t trust them. But da Vinci isn’t a person. Robbie can feel different about him.”
Jofrid smiled. “I believe you are right, Sharon.”
Sor said coldly, “Maybe.”
“Come on, Sor,” Jason said. “Put it behind you, man. Jofrid, we got to get back. Sharon, you need anything here?”
“No,” Sharon said. The only thing she needed was to get Tara back.
When darkness fell, somebody brought Sharon and Sor pillows. In their s-suits, they were warm enough sleeping on the hillside. Sharon slept badly, having nightmares. How long could she go on like this? What were the Panurish doing inside their ship to her baby niece? Wouldn’t anything about this nightmare ever change?
The next morning, it suddenly did.
“Shar-on. Shar-on,” said a hollow voice.
Sharon screamed, jerked awake, and screamed again. Standing on the hillside right in front of her, speaking her name, was a Panurish robot!
“Shar-on. Shar-on.”
Sharon sat up. Sor moved quickly between her and the robot, but the machine didn’t try to attack. Sharon stammered, “What? H-how...how do you know my name? Where’s Tara?”
“Shar-on,” was all the robot said. It started back toward the ship.
Three pa
ces, then it stopped. Turned. Came back to her.
“Shar-on. Shar-on.”
Sor whispered, “I think it wants you to follow it!”
Sharon staggered to her feet. The robot started off again. Sharon said to Sor, “What should I do!”
Sor didn’t answer. Sharon suddenly knew why. Following the robot could be incredibly dangerous, and Sor didn’t want the responsibility for telling her to do it or not do it. But if following the robot might get Tara back...
Sharon squared her shoulders and let the squat metal creature lead her toward the Panurish ship. Sor stayed by her side.
Sixty feet from the ship, she felt a tingle go over her entire body. This must be the invisible electronic “fence” Jason had touched. Part of her mind wondered how tall the “fence” was. Could she jump over it with Tara?
No. The Panurish were smarter than that. She walked toward the ship―but Sor couldn’t. The fence stopped him. “Sharon!” he called. “I can’t get through!”
She didn’t hesitate. “I have to get Tara, Sor!” She kept walking.
The door to the alien ship opened, and Sharon Myers became the first human ever to walk inside a Panurish structure.
She immediately saw Tara. The baby sat on a blanket on a floor of some strange blue metal, and something was definitely not right.
Sharon darted forward and grabbed Tara. The baby didn’t hug her back. Her eyes were glazed, and her little belly was swollen. When Sharon grabbed her up into her arms, Tara vomited all over the blanket and the blue floor.
“What have you done to her?” Sharon screamed. “Tara! Tara!”
The baby clutched Sharon and started to wail, as if throwing up had helped bring her back to normal. Although Sharon hadn’t expected any kind of answer to her question, the robot that had brought her inside the ship spoke in the same slow, hollow voice.
“Ta-ra eat. Ta-ra not good. Too bad, dude.”
Too bad, dude? Suddenly Sharon realized what must have happened. The Panurish robots had overheard the human kids talking. From those conversations, they’d learned to speak English, at least a little. “Too bad, dude” was how Jason expressed sympathy or regret. The robots had picked it up from him.
Then the robot’s words registered. “You fed Tara something that made her sick? What? Is she poisoned?”
No way to know if the robot understood all that, but maybe it did because a flexible tentacle shot out of one of its sides. The tentacle held up a soft, bluish fruit the size of a tangerine.
Relief washed over Tara. It was one of the fruits that Sor had tested in his machine. It wasn’t poison.
Sharon said to the robot, “That’s not poison. Too much gives her a stomachache, but―” Abruptly, she stopped speaking.
If she told them Tara was okay, what would the Panurish do? There were no Panurish in this room, which was small and empty, but they were probably watching from somewhere. If Sharon told the aliens that Tara was fine now that she’d thrown up, what would they do? Probably just make Sharon leave and still keep Tara. No! That wasn’t going to happen!
“Tara is very sick,” Sharon told the robot. She made herself speak very slowly in simple words. There was no way to know how much English the Panurish really knew. “Tara is very not good. I must help Tara. Do you understand?”
“Sharon help Tara,” the robot said.
“And I must have medicine.” Sharon seized on this idea wildly. Maybe she could even get more Yanks in here! That would increase their chances of winning any fight to get out.
“Medicine,” the robot repeated. “Not a clue, dude.”
“Medicine. Drugs. It means...it means special stuff that Tara eats to make her not sick!”
“Yes,” the robot said. “Okay. Jofrid has ‘drugs.’”
It knew who Jofrid was and that she carried medicines in the pockets of her green dress! Sharon felt dazed. The Yanks’d had no idea the Panurish and their robots had been watching humans so carefully. Watching, learning, probably running data through computer programs...and all this while, the humans had learned almost nothing about the Panurish. Too busy fighting among themselves or playing football!
Sharon tried to think. Jofrid wasn’t the person she wanted inside this ship with her. Jofrid was small, not a fighter. She wanted Jason or Sor.
“Yes, Jofrid has medicine,” Sharon said. “But Jofrid cannot come inside your ship. Cannot.” Why? Sharon thought wildly. “Jason is the leader. Only Jason can bring medicine near Panurish. Only the leader.”
This time the robot was silent for a long time. Was it thinking, or was it getting instructions from the hidden Panurish? There was no way to tell. Sharon held Tara tighter.
“Yes,” the robot finally said in its weird hollow voice. “Jason is the leader. Tara is sick. Jason must bring medicine. There is a chain of command here.”
That last, Sharon realized, was something Sor had once said. Sharon had overheard him. Apparently, so had the Panurish.
The robot said, “Go tell Jason to bring medicine, Sharon. Leave Tara here.”
“No!”
“Yes. Leave Tara here. Bring medicine. Bring food Tara can eat. Go now. Bring Jason. Panurish are cool with that.”
Sharon stood, clutching Tara. “Okay,” she said finally. “I bring Jason.” She set Tara back down on the floor.
The door to the ship opened, and Sharon ran through it, calling, “Sor! Sor! Go get Jason―”
But Jason was already there. One of the kids on watch must have gone to get him as soon as Sharon had been woken up by the Panurish robot. Jason stood just outside the sixty-foot defense zone with what looked like three-quarters of the human kids clustered behind him, plus da Vinci. Sharon ran up to them. Once again, she felt that strange tingle as she ran through the invisible “fence.”
“Sharon!” Jason said. “What happened? Why did they take you inside?”
Sor cut in, “Where’s Tara?”
“Inside,” Sharon gasped, out of breath. “Safe. She just had a―” Suddenly she remembered that the Panurish were eavesdropping, learning English, putting everything she said into language banks or whatever they were.
“Tara just had a bout of sickness. She needs some of Jofrid’s medicine. Jason must bring it inside, because only the leader can carry items inside a Panurish ship, of course.”
They all stared at her like she was nuts, then da Vinci caught on. Sor must have reactivated him.
“Ah,” da Vinci said, “of course. Jason must bring some medicine inside for Tara since the Panurish know that our laws dictate that only leaders may do so. Jofrid, you must supply something that will duplicate the cure of Loki at Langarfoss.”
Everyone looked baffled except Jofrid. She broke into a wide smile. She must know what da Vinci was talking about because she said, “I have the right medicine, but Tara must take it four times every day, and each time it must be made fresh. I will make it four times a day at the Discovery, and Jason will carry it in to Tara four times a day. If I do not, Tara will die!”
As Jofrid said this, she stared hard at Sharon and gave a tiny―very tiny―shake of her head. Even in her upset state, Sharon understood. Tara was not in danger of dying. This was a trick to get Jason inside the Panurish ship as much as possible. The Panurish were aliens; they didn’t know about human medicines.
Jason got it too. He said loudly to Jofrid, “Go back to make the first batch of medicine, so Sharon and I can bring it inside.”
Jofrid set off at a run. Sharon tried to walk back toward the Panurish ship. But a different alien robot―or maybe it was the same one― had followed her out, and now it stood just inside the sixty-foot defense zone.
“Wait, Shar-on,” it said. “You go inside Panurish ship after you have medicine.”
There was nothing Sharon could do but wait for Jofrid to return.
Jofrid was quick. In twenty minutes, she was back with a green powder carried in a metal cup from the Discovery. She handed it to Jason. He reached for Sharon’s hand, a
nd they started toward the ship.
The “fence” let them through. Sharon saw Jason give a small start of surprise and realized he must have felt the same tingling she did.
The door of the ship opened for them.
Inside was the same windowless, doorless, blue metal room, empty except for Tara. The Panurish were still hiding, and they’d made sure the humans couldn’t get to them. But they―or a robot―had cleaned up Tara. She sat on a fresh blanket, dressed in her same clothes but now spotless, playing with her toes and gurgling happily. Never had Sharon seen a healthier baby, but maybe the Panurish wouldn’t catch on to that.
Or maybe they would.
“Hey, Tara,” Jason said. Then he spoke in the general direction of the bluest wall. “And hey, Panurish. How you doin’? I’m Jason, leader of the Jump expedition. I got medicine for this baby. Our doctor says I got to bring it fresh four times a day, so I’m going to be here. Maybe we can talk a little.”
No response.
Jason handed the cup to Sharon. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it, so she invented. She licked her finger to wet it, then rubbed it in the cup until every bit of green powder stuck to her finger. Then she put it in Tara’s mouth. The baby tasted, grinned, and eagerly sucked Sharon’s finger.
Sharon had a sudden suspicion that the green powder was nothing more than colored sugar.
“Now this baby will be all right until her next dose,” Jason said loudly. “Everybody cool with that?”
No response.
Jason sat down on the floor. The robot said, “Jason leave now. Jason come with next medicine.”
“No, I think I’ll hang here a while,” Jason said comfortably. “See who shows up, you know?”
The robot didn’t answer, but suddenly Jason yelled, “Hey! That hurt!”
“What?” Sharon cried. “I didn’t feel anything!’
“They shocked me,” Jason said. “Just a little shock, but―” He stopped. He and Sharon looked at each other.