Nothing Human

by Nancy Kress

  “That smell is gone now,” Sajelle said.

  Lillie admitted to herself that she still felt bruised. He’d used her. But bruised wasn’t bone-shaking jealousy and unstoppable pain, and what had that been about, anyway? She’d lost her perspective on things. Well, she had it back, now.

  “Let’s go to the garden,” she said abruptly, breaking into Emily’s monologue about Rafe’s theories.

  Sajelle blinked. Emily said uncertainly, “Well, if you want to, Lillie.”

  “I do.” Better to just get it over with.

  Mike was dancing with Sophie in the cafe. Lillie, heart pounding but under control, walked past them to a group sitting by the pond. They welcomed her with exaggerated cries, both wary and sympathetic. Jason winked at her.

  The wink looked just right to Lillie. He was saying, Don’t let it get to you, saying it with humor and style. Lillie winked back.

  She tried to pretend to be natural, and the more she did, the more natural she actually felt. Also healthy and energetic. She got them all to the basketball court, where Jason, one of the captains, picked her first for his team.

  Three nights later, after his persistent and exaggerated gestures that made her laugh, Lillie went with Jason to his room and had sex with him. She felt relief, and desire, and the knowledge that Jason would only be with her a few days before moving on. Sad knowledge, irrelevant knowledge. What mattered was the sex. In fact, it seemed to Lillie she wanted it more with Jason than she had ever with Mike. It was as if she was driven toward Jason, hungry and eager, and couldn’t help herself. But, then, why would she want to?

  “Sajelle! Wake up!” Lillie stood by Sajelle’s bed, barefooted, shivering in a room that shouldn’t have been cold. “Wake up! Now!”

  Sajelle stirred sleepily beside Alex, opened her eyes, sat up quickly.

  “Something’s happening,” Lillie said. “I don’t know what. Please … come.”

  Sajelle climbed over Alex and followed Lillie into the corridor. By the time they closed the door behind them, Sajelle was already frowning. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Lillie said helplessly. “I just woke up knowing something’s … wrong.”

  Sajelle said slowly, “Yeah. It is.”

  Relief washed over Lillie. She wasn’t the only one with this sense of doom. Not just doom, either. Anger, fear, shame, a flood of nasty emotions that made her feel terrible. What was she doing on the ship so long? God, poor Uncle Keith must think she was dead! And then Jason … and before him Mike … how had she acted like such a slut? She, Lillie! She didn’t behave like that! And she’d been here—they’d all been here—how long? What month was it, anyway? Why had they stayed, learning genetics from aliens, while their families below must not even know what happened to them!

  “God,” Sajelle said, “those … aliens. What have I been doing here? How long has it been?”

  “I don’t know. I lost track.”

  “They not even human!”

  “Well …” Lillie said, her native fairness asserting itself. But then an image came to her, sharp and horrifying: Pam taking her through the garden wall into the rest of the ship, and flowing toward her a thing, a blob, of living tissue … How had she forgotten that terrible picture? She clutched Sajelle’s arm.

  “Don’t you go clinging to me!” Sajelle snapped. Then, “I’m sorry, Lillie. It’s just…”

  “I know,” Lillie said. She felt on edge herself, anxious, almost sorry she’d woken Sajelle. “What’s happening?”

  “We ourselves again,” Sajelle said grimly.

  Yes. But how, and why? And who had Lillie been before? All of a sudden she wanted to cry, or kick something, or find Pam and Pete and demand explanations, reasons.

  The door to commons opened and Rafe came through, very pale. “I did it.”

  “Did what?” Sajelle snapped. “What your sorry ass doing now?”

  “I took out the scent-organism complex.”

  The girls stared at him. He said impatiently, “Don’t be stupid, you two! If the lawn machine was organic, then don’t you see that the scent-producing mechanism must be, too? It’s the ‘right way.’ Genetically engineer everything you can, and regard the rest with disdain. Olfactory molecules have been coming at us day and night, incredibly complex molecules, controlling our behavior. Probably acting on the emotional areas of the brain just the way the learning molecules act on the cortex.”

  Lillie struggled to take it in. “You mean … Pam and Pete have been controlling our behavior? With engineered molecules? Getting us to …” She couldn’t finish.

  “You got it,” Rafe said grimly. “Getting us to like school, and be happy here on ship, and not worry about what we left down below, and fuck like minks.”

  “You wrong!” Sajelle yelled. “Nobody controls me!”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Sajelle swung on him. She connected. Rafe was taller than he had been but still slightly built; he went down, staggering up a moment later with a bloody nose.

  “I’m sorry,” Sajelle whispered.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you are.” Rafe looked on the verge of tears. “Listen, Sajelle, would you have done that if I hadn’t poisoned the scent organisms? I don’t think so. Face facts for once in your unintellectual life, why don’t you.”

  Lillie cried, “How did you do it, Rafe?”

  “Not hard. I found the opening in commons—apparently it does our whole area —made some strong acid in the school, and poured it in.”

  “We weren’t taught to make any acid.”

  He looked disgusted. “Not by Pam and Pete. But unlike you, I knew some chemistry before I arrived here. I had some other priorities than clothes and sports and sex.”

  “You and Emily done your share of fucking since you got here,” Sajelle jeered. “Or did you two just talk about chemistry all them nights?”

  Lillie said, “We have to go back. To Earth. My Uncle Keith … how long have we been here?”

  Rafe said, blood still streaming from his nose, “Seven months and twelve days. It’s April 10.”

  April 10! God, how had so much time passed? She hadn’t known, hadn’t even remembered, hadn’t been herself. Who had she been? The things she’d done with Jason and Mike …

  Lillie said to Rafe, “They didn’t control us completely, or we’d all have been the same. But we weren’t! Sam was still a bully, and you were still interested in science stuff, and Elizabeth was still religious, and — “

  “You’re right,” Rafe said sulkily. “Basic personality remained. Like Sajelle being an idiot. But olfactory molecules controlled our moods, made us happy here no matter what, took away missing people and wanting to go home and sexual inhibitions and any emotional pain.”

  Any emotional pain. Her jealousy and betrayal over Mike, and then all at once it vanished. Just like that. And Sajelle saying “What’s that smell?” And the talk with Pam in the garden, Lillie thinking Pam was wonderful, so warm and caring.

  Sajelle said, “You crazy, Rafe. Why would Pam and Pete want us fucking like that?”

  “I don’t know.” He’d succeeded in stopping the blood flow from his nose. He looked a mess, bloody and dirty and angry.

  A door flew open and Rebecca rushed out. “Hey! I woke up and … what is this?”

  “Tell them, Rafe,” Sajelle said, and even under her roil of painful emotions Lillie could see that Sajelle was trying to make amends to Rafe, trying to let him shine.

  Rafe began his explanation again. In the middle of it Sam and Jessica bolted out of Jessie’s room, and Rafe had to begin a third time. When Julie appeared, Rafe said in disgust, “I’m not going to keep doing this! Wake up everybody and get them into commons so I can tell everybody at once!”

  “You better watch who you’re ordering around,” Sam said threateningly. He waved a fist in Rafe’s bloody face. Rebecca scowled at Sam. Julie, cowering against a wall, began to cry silently, tears sliding down her frightened face.

  They were all
themselves again, Lillie realized. They’d been themselves all along, but only partly, the rest of their selves controlled and manipulated and tamed. And now they were themselves again completely. And so was she, and she was scared and angry, and she wanted to go home.

  She fought down the feelings. “Becky, start waking up people. You, too, Jessie. Try to be gentle. Julie, stop bawling! It isn’t going to help. We need to get everybody into the commons room.”

  Elizabeth ran out of her room. Lillie caught sight of Elizabeth’s face and the thought flashed across her mind: None of the rest of us are that terrified! But there was no time for Elizabeth. Lillie got the others set at waking people up, and then she went with Rafe to the commons.

  “Here, put this on your nose, it’s bleeding again.” She handed him the sash from her pants.

  “The effect is in here, too, do you feel it? Or, rather, the lack of effect.” His voice was unsteady.

  “Rafe, do you think that by poisoning those … organisms, you might have poisoned our air, too? Is it safe to breathe, long term?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Okay,” Lillie said.

  “Do you think we should call Pam and Pete? If that’s even possible.”

  It was possible, Lillie knew. Standing in her bare feet on the thick garden grass, bleating for Pam, who had reassured her about the birth-control pill and told her she was different and special, that Lillie and she were the same because they wanted, needed, meaning in their lives. Wonderful, caring Pam, who had turned Lillie into a puppet for seven and a half months. Who had used pheromones to make her forget Uncle Keith, and stay mindlessly on the Flyer, and have sex with Mike and then Jason, and …

  “No,” she told Rafe. “Don’t call Pam or Pete. Some of the others might kill them. Sam or Jessica, for instance.” And me.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Rafe said. “Fuck.”

  When they were all there, Rafe explained again what he’d done. He showed them the slit, a small horizontal slash high near the ceiling, into which he’d poured the acid. Shouting and tears and horror followed, a pandemonium until Jon out-shouted everybody else and got them listening again.

  Proof, Lillie thought through her own anger and fear, that there were no surveillance cameras in commons. If Pam and Pete knew what was going on, wouldn’t they be there?

  “The question is,” Jon said, “what are we going to do?”

  “Kill the fuckers!”

  “Sam, think,” Jon said curtly. “Even if we could do that, what good would it do? We want to go home.”

  “Make them send us home!” Sophie called.

  “How?”

  More argument, everyone jumping up and talking at once, no one listening. But what good would listening do? Nobody, as far as Lillie could tell, had any real ideas. Finally, in a lull resulting not from agreement so much as exhaustion, Lillie said, “We have to ask Pam and Pete to send us home.”

  “Ask them? You think they care what we want?”

  “They sure didn’t ask us before!”

  “Break down the fucking door! The door they took Lillie through when she was sick! Beat the shit out of them until they scream!” Sam, yelling again. Lillie looked at him, dressed only in jeans, fists clenched, stubble on his chin. Looking demented, like something from a bad video game. She looked at all her friends, these people she’d spent seven and a half months with, now furious and terrified and helpless.

  Julie, crouching in her chair, bent over so that her straight fine hair hid her tearful face.

  Sajelle, naked under the long T-shirt that had been the only thing on her when Lillie woke her. Her dark face set in stubborn lines, lip pushed out, black liquid eyes scared.

  Jason, not clowning now, his handsome face shocked into immobility like stone.

  Madison, breathing fast with her mouth open, as if she couldn’t get enough air.

  Rafe, sulky and fearful and triumphant, holding Lillie’s sash to his bloody nose.

  Elizabeth … Elizabeth wasn’t here.

  Lillie frowned. Had Elizabeth gone back to her room, to cower and pray? Lillie hadn’t seen her leave commons. But she remembered the look on Elizabeth’s face in the hall, a look of revulsion so much deeper than anything the others showed that it had made Lillie pause. Revulsion and horror and …

  The door to the garden flew open and Pam and Pete strode into the room. But… was that them? It actually took Lillie a moment to recognize them, Pam’s smooth face was so contorted. Pete’s teeth were bared, perfect white teeth.

  “You … you …” Pam couldn’t get words out. Pam.

  “It wasn’t bad enough that there were only twenty of you here!” Pete screamed. “Now you have to reduce the number more … stupid stupid raw genetic … All the effort! All the time! And you think you can destroy our carefully … you! You!”

  The kids had all stopped dead, staring. Lillie shrank back against a wall. What had happened, why were Pam and Pete like this, she hadn’t known they could be like this —

  “Our whole lives!” Pete shrieked. “To benefit you stupid ungrateful—”

  Pam let loose a sound no human voice could make, a roar that rose into a steep wail.

  ” — don’t deserve all we’ve done for you, all we’re trying to do … our whole lives — ” Pete ran into the room and struck Alex, closest to the garden door, full in the stomach. Alex went down, bent double.

  “Get ‘em!” Sam cried. “They’ll kill us!”

  He rushed Pete. After a shocked moment, Mike and Jason joined him. The three boys hit Pete together, and he went down.

  “No, no, it’s all a mistake!” Pam cried. “We won’t hurt you! You’re our—” She didn’t get to finish. Derek and Bonnie jumped her, knocking her down, and Sophie immediately sat on Pam’s chest.

  “Stop!” Jon called. “Stop! Let them explain! They’re not—” Lillie didn’t hear more. She had run to Alex, crumpled by the garden door. He gasped for breath, clutching his stomach. He was turning blue. Something inside him must be injured, Pete had killed him … “Alex! Alex!”

  Slowly his gasps began to bring air into his lungs. Color returned to his face. But he continued to clutch his stomach, moaning. “Hurts …”

  “Don’t try to talk,” Lillie said. She knew CPR, but Alex didn’t need it now. She watched, panicky, for signs of shock. Elevate the feet, keep him warm … but it didn’t look like shock. Pete had injured something inside Alex, some organ … what if Alex were bleeding inside? Lillie wouldn’t have any idea what to do.

  She turned her head to the fight behind her. Pam down, Pete down, Sam’s fist raised over Pete’s face … Lillie saw it all as a frozen image, a single-moment snapshot. Her head whipped back to Alex, and the motion swept her line of sight through the door into the garden, and she saw it.

  Elizabeth. Hanging by the neck from a big tree. Dead.

  The look on Elizabeth’s face in the hall, a look of revulsion so much deeper than anything the others showed. Elizabeth, who believed in a God that would punish her if she didn’t undo her genetic modifications. Who would also punish her if she herself learned Satan’s art. Who punished sex if you weren’t married. Rafe’s words: “Olfactory molecules controlled our moods, made us happy here no matter what.”

  The olfactory molecules Rafe had killed with his homemade acid.

  Lillie opened her mouth to say something, or call somebody, or scream, but whatever it was never came out. Dizziness hit her like a hammer and everything vanished.

  CHAPTER 12

  She woke in a small space filled with people. Immediately she recognized it, from months and months ago: the shuttle. She was strapped securely into a seat. The other eighteen kids woke at the same time. Pam and Pete, calm again, stood in the open doorway of the shuttle, behind them a huge empty room.

  “You can’t speak yet,” Pam said wearily, “so don’t try. It’s only temporary. By the time you get back on Earth the speech inhibitor will have worn off. Yes, you’re going home. We’v
e done as much work with your kind as we can. If there had been as many of you as there were supposed to be, or if you could understand more — “

  Pete interrupted. It came to Lillie, even through her dazed incomprehension, that Pete sounded apologetic. “It was our first assignment,” he said.

  “Just do the best you can, especially you girls. Lillie, Emily … well, we tried,” Pam said, still wearily. “We’ll be back.” She and Pete stepped outside the shuttle and the door closed.

  The shuttle moved. Acceleration pushed Lillie against the back of her seat. She closed her eyes, her mind whirling.

  The ride seemed very short. Lillie made a few attempts to speak, but they didn’t work. She saw the others do the same. By the time the shuttle came gently to rest, she could talk again. The straps holding her automatically fell away, and the shuttle door opened.

  A blast of hot air blew in.

  “Where are we?” Rebecca said, to no one. Sophie whimpered. Lillie felt someone grab her hand: Julie. Julie held on tight.

  “I’ll check it out,” said Jon, their natural leader. He rose and walked cautiously to the open door. “Well, it looks like Earth. I just don’t know where.”

  There was a general stampede outside.

  The sun was just rising. They stood in a red glow on a deserted plain, with the hazy outlines of mountains in the distance. A highway ran beside the shuttle, two lanes, straight and utterly empty. A tumbleweed blew by. The rest of the plants that Lillie could see were low and dry and thorny, colored faded greens and browns.

  “Looks like a high desert,” Alex said, and Lillie turned to him in surprise.

  “Alex! Are you all right? Your stomach — “

  “Yeah.” He felt his midriff, looking puzzled. “I’m fine now.”

  “How long were we unconscious?” Emily demanded. No one answered. It could have been days, Lillie realized. It had been days for her, before. Pam and Pete had fixed up Alex.

  There was nothing they could do for Elizabeth.