Tug had completed a review of everything he’d ever learned about Beasts. Nothing physical or psychological he could come up with explained what was happening with Evangeline. She should have been totally miserable and frightened at being out of contact with him. She should have been begging him to talk with her, instead of refusing his summons. Beasts were naturally gregarious, having been herd creatures before the Arthroplana had changed their social patterns by domestication. They were simple and good-natured, requiring little more of their Masters than entertainment and praise. Their innate intelligence had severe limits, but they could learn, if one repeated the lesson almost endlessly. One early experimenter had made an effort at raising that intelligence by such teaching, but had only succeeded in creating an irritable and frustrated Beast that had to be euthanized. The consensus was that the experiment had been ill-conceived and irresponsible; such tampering with nature was forbidden, now. Older Beasts exhibited similar symptoms toward the ends of their natural spans of usefulness, but Evangeline was neither overtrained nor old. It didn’t make sense.
And there was nothing he could do.
Judicious applications of pain brought no response from her. Tug wanted to think before proceeding to more radical pain levels. For one thing, his body’s arsenal needed time to replenish itself. For another, he wanted to consider what he could do if high levels of pain no longer brought any response from her.
The Humans would have considered him a parasite within Evangeline; he was aware of that. Arthroplana preferred to consider their intellectual connection rather than any physical dependence, and refer to their relationship as symbiotic. Denied mental contact with Evangeline, his physical arsenal was his only method of dealing with her. He could sting her to obedience with pain, calm her fears with sedatives, even quell her mating urges to keep the Beast population in check. All restraining devices. He could not stimulate her pleasure centers, if indeed, Beasts had any. The only bait he could offer her was his companionship. How could she suddenly not need that? What could compete with that? He knew if he could ponder out that answer, he might have an idea of how to regain control.
In the end, she touched him. She couldn’t lift John’s body, not in full Earth gravity, but she had tugged him into a more comfortable position, and propped a cushion under his head. As she covered him with a blanket, more to conceal the disgusting animal marks than anything else, she had wondered what he had done with his spacesuit, and if they dared attempt a takeoff without it. Then she sat for a while and watched him sleep the sleep of exhaustion.
He looked different, and it wasn’t just the reddened skin. Puberty. No wonder he was doing stupid things. The stubble on his face was a little shorter than that on his skull, and the same color. His eyelashes were longer and curled against his cheeks as he slept. His jaw was squaring, or so she thought. Maybe it had always been that way. It was hard to remember how he had looked when she had first signed on. She hadn’t really looked at him much then. It felt odd now to stare at him and not worry about being observed.
After a while she realized she wanted him to wake up. Not to talk to, just to have someone else be in charge. The weight of her present responsibility dragged at her. But admitting it meant she had to take action. She rose and tried for radio contact with Tug again. The computer assured her that the radio checked out fine, and that biological repairs were proceeding as expected. Somehow it was more depressing than cheering. She leaned back in the lounger at the communications console and wondered what to do. The pain of anxiety roiling through her stomach had unfamiliar overtones of urgency. It took her a while to recognize what it was.
She was hungry. It had been years since she’d last felt real hunger. Everything in the womb and on shipboard was set up to foresee her bodily needs before she was aware of them. Well, it wasn’t going to be like that down here. She was awake and on her own. She’d have to take care of herself.
She checked the rations locker. There was plenty there, a ten-day supply for two people. She took out a meal pack and a bubble of water and carried it back to the lounger. The rations were exciting stuff. Chewy bars, four identical ones. Probably designed to be easily consumed under almost any circumstances. The bland flavor would fend off any temptation to overconsume. Eating them was more of a jaw exercise than anything else. But she finished them and conscientiously drank the entire bubble of water before consuming the gelatinous wrappings. She leaned back in the lounger. Okay, that was done. Now what?
John was still sleeping peacefully. She’d never before have believed it, but company of any kind would have been welcome now. She sighed, and turned to stare out at the forbidding view.
It had gotten darker outside. The dull red plain was rust-brown under a deep grey sky. The grey-green bushes were merely grey now, with huddling black shadows beneath them. She hadn’t thought it could get uglier, but it had. The skies looked oppressive, heavy, while the waiting plain was like something tormented and exhausted. Suddenly, quite close by the ship, something broke from the cover of one shadowing plant and raced across the open space to another brushy area. It was about the size of a child’s play ball, and bounced like one. As abruptly as she had seen it, it disappeared, before she could even begin to tally up its features. Was it dangerous? Would it be able to figure out the catches on the door system, would it wait for darkness and then try to enter the ship and prey on them?
Connie felt the bottom of her stomach vibrating. She leaned close to the glass, forced herself to peer out after it, but the creature had concealed itself again. She was totally unprepared for the flash of whiteness that blinded her. She flung herself back from the window and hit the floor rolling. She had scarcely fetched up against John before the entire shuttle shook with an ominous roar that she felt throughout her entire body. She screamed as the window hazed and began to melt away.
“What is it? What is it?” John had jerked awake. She clutched at him with an incoherent cry, then managed to point at the blurring window.
“Out there. An animal, I saw it, and then we were hit by some kind of blast….”
Even as she spoke, the blue-white light flashed again, burning John’s stark profile into her retinas. She clenched her eyes shut and huddled against him. She could feel his heart pounding. A few moments of intense terror, and then, just as she dared to open her eyes, the shuttle quivered with impact again. The dull rumbling sounded as much in her guts as her ears. She forced herself to turn toward the window and look.
She felt John’s grip on her shoulders slacken. “Thunder and lightning. A rainstorm. That’s all.” He let go of her and scrambled up to the shuttle’s window and stared out avidly.
Rain, she thought dully. Washing in floods down the window, making the glass look like it was melting. Lightning and thunder. That was all, sure. But the storm that lashed their ship and the surrounding plain was like nothing she’d ever experienced on gentle Castor. After a time she mustered her courage and crept to John’s side, to peer out beside him.
Wind lashed the plain, beating some of the plant life flat. A driving rain backed it up. Connie could see the force of the splattering drops as they hit the red earth, and were immediately absorbed. For a moment the wind lessened, and then hit with even more force. Connie saw one bush uprooted and sent tumbling away, a plaything for the storm. Its bare black roots clutched pathetically at the soil, and its branches tangled desperately as it clung to its companions, but the wind ripped it away.
She glanced up at John’s face and saw the furrows in his brow. Even he had not been prepared to witness natural violence on this great a scale. When the lightning struck again, they both flinched and drew back from the window.
John looked at her for a moment. His hand reached for the control that would shield the window and shut out the view of the storm and bring up the cabin lights.
“No,” Connie requested softly. There was no logic in it. The storm frightened her, but it also fascinated her. There was an exhilaration in its force. She felt
smug in being inside while it raged outside, and the bare edge of fear that the shuttle would not stand up to its force, yes. But there was also the excitement of the storm, and the satisfaction it gave her. It was as if all the fury she constantly had to contain within herself were vented outside. It was her first sense of kinship with the world outside the shuttle. She sat on the arm of John’s lounger and watched the world rip itself open with light and bellow with thunder as evening surrendered to night.
The shuttle became a small place, surrounded by the night and storm outside, and lit only by the gentle glow of the control instrumentation, and the occasional wild blast of lightning. The rain and wind blended into an almost-hypnotic rhythm of sound and motion. She sagged deeper into the lounger, felt all the weariness of the day’s tension turn into a heaviness of lax muscles and warmth. She had never known that rest could feel so good; but then, she had never been this physically tired before.
She had almost forgotten John when his voice broke the monologue of the storm. “Looks like you took over and got it all under control.” He paused. “Thanks. And congratulations.”
John was easier to take as a soft voice in the darkness. She didn’t jump. She only ran her eyes over the instrument console and realized he was right. All the readings were within the normal range, bio repairs were proceeding as well as could be expected, and the indicator for the emergency beacon still flashed insistently. Everything that could be done, she had done. Efficiently. Without supervision. And John approved. She became aware of warmth and weight against her left side, and realized they had both sagged into the lounger and had been so for some time. A few hours ago, the touch of him against her shoulder and hip would have been unimaginable. But the storm and the darkness and the Earth outside made it right and natural.
“Thanks,” she finally responded to his compliment.
He either chuckled or coughed slightly. It sounded the same, and she felt too warm and comfortable to wonder which. She sighed heavily, the last venting of the day’s tensions.
She felt him take a deep breath.
“Connie, there’s something I have to tell you about.”
She stiffened at his tone.
“What?” she demanded.
“Oh … nothing that critical. Relax. It will keep until tomorrow. It’s nothing we can do anything about anyway. I’d just feel more comfortable if you were filled in on it.”
She could feel the hesitancy in his voice, and knew he was holding something back. But suddenly she was just too tired and warm and comfortable to care. “Okay,” she agreed blandly, and stared out at the storm until she felt her eyes close of their own accord.
14
BOREDOM. Tug’s anxiety had finally given way to an all-consuming boredom. He’d spent some time wondering idly that no one had ever considered that a Beast might become intractable in just this fashion, and built in some sort of fail-safe. All it would have required would have been some mechanical method, independent of the Beast herself, that would allow communication with the outside world. It could have utilized the old Terran technology. Granted, he’d still have had a long wait before rescue, but at least he’d have had some way to summon help and the prospect of eventual rescue. He’d argued before that the Human technology should have been mined for such usefulness before it was removed from their records and discarded.
That had inspired him to move to the console that communicated directly with the Humans. Restlessly he’d spied from room to room. Amazing, how empty they seemed without Connie and John. He had never considered he might miss them.
Now he pored through their empty chambers, Connie’s Spartan and obsessively tidy and John’s organized, but awash with reader tapes and objects that related to them. Tug had rescanned all the poetry in Connie’s auto-load reader. Nothing new there; Tug had been responsible for the selections, and she have given them only a cursory reading. Her library had enlarged substantially since the beginning of this trip, but most of it was either technical manuals, or archaic works relating to the natural history of Terra, or the volumes he had recommended she add to her access. Boring. The music in her quarters was likewise uninteresting; bland, and some of it prescription sound soothers.
But John’s quarters were another story. Tug had been aware that John’s library had increased substantially right before the beginning of this trip. He’d also been aware of John’s newest innovations in his security system aimed at denying Tug access. Since the humiliation of the ersatz poetry, Tug had considered it too much trouble to break into the system again. None of it could be trusted, he’d decided, except perhaps whatever John was sleep prepping. Surely he wouldn’t force feed his brain false information. Early in the trip, Tug had broken into that system as far as cracking the directory. The titles listed there hadn’t inspired him to go any further. Most of it sounded like natural history relating to Terra. Much of the rest had been technical manuals relating to the new shuttle.
But now, faced with boredom and isolation, he turned his attention to John’s puny attempts to block him out of his sleep-prep library. He reminded himself that it wouldn’t be the first time John had used misleading directory titles in an attempt to confuse Tug. There might yet be something amusing in there.
His task would have been a lot easier if Evangeline had been helping him. But Tug consoled himself it was still just a matter of time, and that was something he had in plenty. He immersed himself in the intricacies of the library and its loading codes.
It was almost disappointingly easy to break into John’s security. One had only to reflect on John’s current fascination with Jeffrey Shelstein’s A Farewell to Earth. Tug then tried every first line from every sonnet in the volume to find which one supplied a random pattern of numbers for the lock. Once he’d forced the system, Tug could take his time plundering it. He made one desultory effort at communicating with Evangeline.
“I know you’re listening to me, even if you’re not responding,” Tug told her. “Perhaps you think your wickedness and disharmonious behavior disturbs me. In fact, I am relieved to be rid of you. I have no need for your company. With no Evangeline to burden me, I have time for other, more interesting things. Perhaps I shall choose never to respond to you again.”
It was the ultimate threat, that of isolation, usually used on only the most recalcitrant young Beasts. Tug awaited a response for a few of what the Humans termed hours, then turned aside from her. Now he would be forced to ignore her first two attempts to recontact him. The delay would be annoying, but it was the recommended course after such a threat; there must be consequences to disobeying. That the delay might be the difference between the Humans living or dying could not concern him now; regaining control of his Beast was the main thing.
John’s auto-load was filled to capacity with several weeks of sleep-prep tapes. Tug decided to scan his most recent readings first. It took no more than one reading for Tug to realize what he’d found, but he listened to all of them three times before he allowed himself to consider their significance.
Tug had thought he could not feel more alone. But as he shut off the playback of John’s auto-feeder, his isolation encased him like a pupa’s cloak. Betrayed. John had deliberately betrayed his trust, taken on a mission that endangered all of them. The immensity of it, both in stupidity and daring, was almost more than Tug could grasp.
There was a delicious irony to it as well. They’d led John to believe he’d be saving the Human race, when actually he would have been responsible for their complete annihilation. And all their plans brought to naught by the disobedience of a Beast. Yes, there was humor in that.
John had been no more than a tool, and he doubted that even Earth Affirmed had ever foreseen the long-range possible consequences of their little conspiracy. Mandible cilia curling in amusement, Tug set the chain reaction in motion for himself. If John had succeeded in returning alive to the Evangeline, and if the samples had been undetected in the shuttle’s hidden compartments, and if Earth Affirmed had been
able to retrieve them without the Conservancy’s detection, then they probably could have proved Terra was reclaimable.
And thus wiped out the Human race. Any reclamation attempt would have required the cooperation of the Arthroplana and their Beastships, and that would never happen. Was Earth Affirmed so blind that it had never seen that? The Arthroplana had discovered long ago that maintaining a monopoly on interstellar travel was the only way to neutralize all threats from other sentient life-forms. Just as the Humans were the most dangerous species they’d ever encountered, so were they in a particularly vulnerable position, as they required vegetation from both Castor and Pollux in order to synthesize a balanced diet for themselves. Certainly, the Arthroplana had been willing to rescue the Human race from certain doom on Terra; in the act, they’d been careful to strip them of their budding space-faring ability, to remove both the records of such technology, and to deny Humans capable of perpetuating such technology access to the Beastships.
Once contained and controlled, Humanity had been useful, not to mention entertaining; still was. Their manufactured goods fueled an interplanetary trade that was sumptuously taxable. The discards from their asteroid mining provided a cheap source of feed for the Beastships. Their mobility within their protective suits had enabled the Arthroplana to investigate and classify newly discovered planets at no risk to themselves.
They were not, however, intrinsically necessary to the Arthroplana. On the twin planets, dependent on the Beastships for interplanetary trade, they were useful, and if they became intractable, they could be disposed of. Tug imagined that would have been the final outcome; that the knowledge John’s samples would have furnished would have triggered unrest, rioting, and rebellion on the Human planets. John would have been responsible for the death of his whole race.
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