Georgia On My Mind and Other Places

by Charles Sheffield

“Maybe suspicion is, too. If the Sigils have enough triggers built in against interference they’ll spot me before I’m hardly started.”

  “So the sooner we know that, the better. Out of bed, and get to work. You weren’t brought all this way for a vacation.” But Valmar Krieg’s nod was one of satisfaction as he strode out.

  More sleep would be impossible anyway. Gilden, muzzy-headed, forced himself to take a hot and cold shower, and then to eat a full breakfast before he set to work.

  He had oversimplified the problem for Valmar Krieg to the point of imbecility, and at the same time deliberately made its solution sound more difficult. Gilden didn’t want anyone, most especially Krieg, aware of the sophistication of the tools he had developed over the past ten years. And no one must suspect that during the following days of intense dawn-to-midnight effort Gilden would be feeling his way through not one mental maze, but two.

  Derli found him on the afternoon of the tenth day, asleep in the dining area. His head rested on the hard table, he was snoring, and in front of him sat a cold and untouched plate of food.

  She took a seat cushion and eased it under his gaunt cheek. She did it as gently as possible but the disturbance awoke him. He stared at her, bleary-eyed.

  “Mmph. What time is it?”

  “Four hours after noon. You look terrible. Why don’t you go to bed and get some real sleep?”

  “I was going to. As soon as I’d eaten. I was coming to see you. To show you.” He was mumbling, still hardly awake, working his jaw from side to side and turning his head to ease the muscles of his stiffened neck. “I don’t have all you need. Look for more as soon as I’m rested. But I have something.”

  “You’re inside the Sigil ship?”

  “Five days ago. Not too hard. Difficult part is time-sharing the monitors. So our observations won’t be noticed. And then getting information out.” Gilden stood up, leaning against Derli for balance. “Come on, if you want to see it. Krieg, too.”

  “He’s not here. He flew to Montmorin for a meeting with a Lucidar group. I think there’s a big fight brewing with Earth. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “Mm.” Gilden hardly seemed interested, leading the way into his own living quarters. “Doesn’t matter. Unless you need him.”

  “For my work? I don’t. Valmar started out as a biologist, but he hasn’t done any real research or analysis for years. I don’t need him.”

  Gilden grunted. He was already at work, setting up a linked series of displays. “Take a look at this first. It’s just a summary, an overview of what we’ve got. When you see what’s here and what’s missing, you can tell me where I should concentrate my efforts tomorrow.” He stood up and gestured to his seat.

  “What about you?” But Derli sat down. The temptation was too great. A first image was already forming on the screen, of what could be an interior chamber of the Sigil ship.

  “I’m going to take a shower while you do a run-through. You don’t need me for that—probably manage better without me.”

  She said nothing. Gilden knew why. He had developed the displays slowly and painfully, over days of frustrating effort, but even that had been fascinating. For Derli the impact would be a thousand times as great.

  He stood staring at her in silence for a couple of minutes. Then he retreated quietly to the bathhouse. Derli did not even notice his departure.

  Progress was slow, but finally overwhelming. For the first couple of minutes of display Derli saw only blurry green outlines of two Sigil, moving jerkily from place to place. Frequent incomprehensible breaks or swirls of random color provided a maddening distraction, as did passing glimpses of what seemed to be chamber ceilings and floors.

  But then, as Gilden’s mastery of the interaction technique had slowly deepened, the recorded images improved in focus, depth, color, and detail. Derli could discern odd features of the Sigil ship interior. The chamber walls had a convoluted, organic look to them, unlike anything constructed by humans. Even the control banks lacked clean, hard, functional outlines. She waited, impatient but understanding. Her interest was in the biology of the Sigil but she was not the only customer for Gilden’s magic. Others cared to know about the ship, not its occupants.

  Finally, as though responding to Derli’s impatience, the display settled down to show the Sigil themselves. Derli leaned forward. They were not wearing the suits that had cloaked every record in the Lucidar data banks. She confirmed overall structure. Both Sigil were certainly bipedal, with bilateral symmetry. Now that she could see their external colors, she learned that the legs and arms springing from the forward-curving torso were a bright orange-red. The trunk was banded, in crimson and white for the smaller Sigil and in darker red and white for the other. Only the head of each was dark. The prominent muzzles, almost black, were ciliated with delicate silver tendrils like the feelers on a catfish.

  Derli watched the display through to its last incomplete image. Then she backed up to the beginning, longing for more: more detail of the mouth, especially its inside; more and higher-resolution images of the lower part of the trunk where the reproductive and excretory organs were logically housed; X rays, to reveal internal structure; most of all, tissue samples.

  She began to make a list, even though she knew that the last two elements would almost certainly be denied to her regardless of Gilden’s skill. Ship monitoring systems used X rays routinely for status reports on the drive and X rays also served a purpose with living organisms. But that was in diagnosis of abnormal conditions, not during routine survey of the ship’s interior.

  As for tissue samples, Gilden had already assured her that he could return no material object, however small, from the inside of the ship. But he had performed other miracles. As the record progressed from beginning to end the Sigil became smoothly moving solid objects rather than flat, jerky cartoons.

  Derli stopped wishing for what she did not have, and concentrated her attention on the similarities and differences between the two Sigil. She moved to the appropriate part of the file.

  She knew from the original records provided by Bravtz’ig that the smaller alien was about one and a half meters tall, the big one maybe three meters. Such a large size imposed structural limitations on any form evolved on a planet with gravity comparable with Earth or Lucidar. Gilden’s new data confirmed it. The larger Sigil was bigger in every way, thicker, clumsier, slower moving. The small one danced anxiously around it, bringing food and drink, adjusting cushions, apparently catering to its partner’s every demand. Structurally, both of them possessed a generally similar body pattern except for variations of the lower trunk. That suggested the varying genital configurations appropriate to male and female. The color differences of the torso were also presumably sex-linked, brighter crimson bands fitting the display pattern of the smaller male.

  It was all plausible and consistent. But something, somewhere, did not quite fit.

  What?

  She leaned back in her seat, placed interlocked hands on the back of her head, and pondered.

  Derli had frozen the display at a certain point, concentrating on a smooth boss at the base of the male Sigil’s torso, when she heard a noise behind her. It was Gilden, his hair dark and wet and slicked down across his forehead. He was paler than ever, but far more alert.

  “Is this everything?” Derli nodded to the display.

  “Everything I thought you’d need to see. I have hours and hours of other records, about the ship itself and its computer system.”

  “I think I should see them all. Just in case.” She pointed to her own notes. “And here’s my wish list. Without cell samples I’m reduced to guessing on things as basic as sex. Maybe you can work out some way to provide me with a substitute for that information.”

  “I can try.” Gilden stared at the display. “You’re still in the middle sequence after all this time. Or did you go all the way through?”

  “Twice.” She frowned up at him, then glanced across to the general display board. “Phe
w. I’ve been sitting here over three hours. Unbelievable. I thought you were just going for a shower.”

  “I was. I took a nap first.” He hesitated. “Want to eat? I don’t remember when I last had a full meal.” And, when she seemed slow to answer, “We can talk about the rest of the data you need. Don’t know if I’ll be able to get it. But I’ll try. Just tell me what you want.”

  He was too nervous. His jittery movements reminded Derli of the anxious male Sigil (if it was the male) hovering over its hulking partner. She stood up. “All right. I’m hungry, too. And we don’t have to discuss my problem. We can talk about anything you like.” She took Gilden by the arm.

  A mistake. He flinched away from her touch. He would not look at her as they walked together to the dining area, and he stared up at the ceiling while Derli made food selections for both of them.

  It was a chance too good to miss. She glanced at Gilden’s tormented, too-pale face, and quietly added a mixture of tranquilizers and stimulants to the drinks that she was ordering. He did not notice, even when they sat down and he took the first sip. He was staring at her when the food was served, but never into her eyes. He was studying her mouth, nose, and ears, as intently as a portrait artist.

  The drugs were slow to take effect. They ate a full three-course meal, while Derli discussed Sigil physiology in as much detail as she was able, including her need for high-resolution body images, and Gilden remained silent. But at last, when the plates were cleared and a third drink had been served and drunk, he met her eyes and said: “You like it here. You don’t have to go back to Earth if you don’t want to.”

  “I told you, Valmar knows the code of my implant as well as yours. He can make us do what he likes. Kill us both, if he has the codes set that way.”

  “He might kill me, but surely he won’t kill you. He wouldn’t set your implant that way. You are his lover.”

  “More than that. And less than that.” Derli laughed and reached out to stroke Gilden’s hand where it sat palm-down on the table, realizing as she did so that the drugs were affecting her as much as him. “He loves me, he loves me not. Arrin, I don’t know what Valmar would do if I said I was staying on Lucidar. But I know I dare not take that risk. Other risks, I want to take.”

  All the initiatives had to come from her. She had known it would be that way. He said nothing as they stood up from the table and she led him slowly back to her bedroom. He knew exactly how to undress her and touch her, as though he had done it before a thousand times. Yet at the same time he was clumsy and breathless, a boy fumbling his way toward a first encounter.

  Derli understood. When the time came she moved on top of him and took the final initiative. And when he was too nervous and sudden, finished before she was even close, she understood that, too. She was part of the problem, unable to respond in full despite the drugs’ assistance. In any case, there was more than one form of satisfaction.

  When it was over he drifted off into sleep without a word. She lay beside him, studying the tight mouth and hollow cheeks. She leaned over and kissed the fading red circle of scar tissue on his muscular right arm. Physical union had changed everything. She had realized that it would—even counted on it. Now she had to tell him.

  She patted his shoulder and his chest, not roughly but hard enough to bring him back to wakefulness. When his eyes opened she waited patiently until at last he turned to look at her.

  “That was wonderful.” But he did not look happy.

  “Yes.”

  “But not for you.”

  “That was my fault.” There was no point in her putting it off. “I couldn’t get into the right mood, because of what I kept thinking.”

  “About the Sigil?”

  “No. Damn the Sigil.” The residual effect of the drugs made her want to giggle when there was nothing funny. “I kept thinking about you, and about Valmar. And my condition.”

  It was as bad as she had feared. He was staring at her in mystification. She would have to spell out everything for him.

  “You knew I was throwing up on the ship coming here. And you knew I was sick when I got here. Wasn’t it obvious to you that I was pregnant? Pregnant with Valmar’s child.”

  He gazed at her with no expression that she could read. “He forced himself on you, made you do whatever he wanted?”

  So easy, to agree to that lie. Derli sighed. “No. I was quite willing. I can say now that I wish I hadn’t done it, but I did.”

  He sat up and laid his hand gently on her bare belly. “Are you telling me that you are pregnant now? That there’s a baby in here?”

  “Yes. I’m at nearly two and a half months. I hope the morning sickness is all finished.”

  “Good.”

  He turned toward her, and she saw the last thing that she had expected. He was physically aroused.

  All the tension in her body melted away. She lay back and closed her eyes. “The second time will be much better, Arrin, I promise you—for both of us.”

  The first lovemaking with Derli had been agony for Gilden of an unusual and terrible kind. He liked her, more than he had ever liked any woman; but when she moved above him and took control of his body she became all the Harpies of childhood, playing with him, mocking him, tormenting him, using him for their own ends without any regard for his needs or wants.

  His body had brought him rapidly to a climax, divorced from his anguish, and he had pretended to a satisfaction he did not feel. As he drifted toward sleep he was convinced that this was the only form of physical sexual experience he could ever know.

  But then Derli had spoken of her pregnancy. That both soothed and excited him. His mind pictured her again with Valmar; and he had an answer.

  He distanced himself mentally from their new union, even as he moved on top of her and entered her waiting body. Once again he became the voyeur, the involved but remote participant. The difference was that he functioned now as both observer and player, embarked on a dizzying self-referential exercise that sent him spinning down an endless regression of sexual congress. He was watcher and actor. He knew the right moves, he had seen them a thousand times over. And when his climax arrived, moments after hers, his dual selves coalesced with a force as painful as torture. His shudders were both physical and mental; this time they signaled a pleasure almost too much to bear.

  It was Derli who drifted off to sleep, while Gilden lay wide awake and tried to understand what had just happened. In the dim overhead lights he studied her body. She lay flat, legs still spread wide. She was breathing slowly and her mouth was slightly open. She would probably not wake until morning.

  It occurred to him that he might never have a better opportunity. He also realized that his workload had just increased again.

  He had to create yet another voyeur, of unmatched sensitivity and operating lifetime.

  She did not move as he leaned over to plant a delicate moth’s kiss on her navel, dressed in silence, and left the bedroom.

  Derli had said what information she needed. She had not suggested any way to obtain it. As soon as Valmar Krieg returned from Montmorin, Gilden moved his base of operations into the mobile experiment station next to the Sigil ship and went into round-the-clock surveillance.

  He was trying to be cautious, but he suspected that he was pushing the limit. It would require minimal effort by one of the Sigil to learn that their privacy had been violated and the computer system subverted.

  He began to confine his intrusion into the ship to microscopic time slices, just enough for a spot check of events. It was during one of these flashes, occurring close to the middle of the Lucidar night, that the crucial event began.

  Gilden came fully awake. The ship’s monitors were showing him the Sigil sleeping area. He had caught a glimpse of the big one crouched on the floor. Above it hovered the small one, clinging on to its partner’s body with all its limbs.

  If there was ever a time to take risks, this was it. Gilden set the ship’s computer to provide and export to him
continuous observations.

  The massive body of the lower Sigil was wriggling uneasily as though she was not satisfied with her position. The smaller one clung on resolutely. A long, tapered member was emerging slowly from the rounded boss on the front lower part of its body. The new organ was pale yellow, glistening, and slightly corrugated along its upper side, as though another ribbed tube ran along it. After a preliminary probing the member’s pointed tip stabbed into an invisible entry point in the rounded bulk of the other’s lower back. The restless movement of the female ceased at once. The Sigil pair became motionless except for a steady pulsing within the thin pipe that coupled them. Waves of contraction passed along it, running in ripples from male to female.

  The act went on for nearly forty minutes, until a shudder racked the whole body of the upper Sigil. As soon as the long spasm was over the creature began to withdraw and loosen its hold. The lower partner did not react to the decoupling. Its splayed body remained immobile, apparently asleep on the floor of the chamber.

  Gilden had been lost in the scene that came to him through the monitors. He was dismayed when he finally thought to glance at the time. He had obtained exactly what Derli had asked for—but at a price. It was hard to believe that an intrusion of such duration and intensity would not raise alarms within the ship’s security systems. Now that he checked he saw that for the past fifteen minutes there had been a flurry of activity on the ship’s computer. Introspection routines that he had never before encountered were coming into operation.

  An unfamiliar signal sounded through the ship’s interior. The smaller Sigil, all its lethargy gone, came scuttling across to inspect the contoured control bank.

  Gilden cut off interaction with the ship, made extra copies of the new records, and hurried with them toward Derli’s apartment. Even though it was the middle of the night she would want to see what he had found.

  He entered her bedroom reluctantly, afraid that he would find Valmar Krieg with her. But she was sleeping alone, covered to the neck by a thin sheet. When he woke her she sat up, sighed, and put her arms around him.