Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  I longed for the plains of my dreams, I did, and the horns blowing and the beautiful colors and the fine brave horses Brahman had never seen. But here we sat dirty and scorched with the welding heat and with the hammering battering at our minds; and never room or chance for a good run at our Beast. I looked up at Lance, wondering if he longed the same. I saw his eyes lifted that once, but it was a furtive glance toward Dela with all that pain on his face that might have been exhaustion. Might have been. Was not.

  That was never changed.

  “We’d better get to work,” Griffin said.

  So we gathered up our used trays and weary bones; and we carried them back to the galley, Dela and I, while the others set themselves to their business.

  There was food to be carried up; and we filled tanks and ran them up; trip after trip in the lift, until my lady was staggering with the loads. And we broke a bottle of the wine, glass all over the corridor, which I hastened to mop up, picking up all the glass. It was like blood spilled there, everywhere, running along the channels of the decking: I thought of that, with our clothes stained with it from the spatter, and the hammering that never stopped. My lady looked distracted at the sight—so, so small a thing threatened her composure, when larger things had not. We were tired, both of us.

  “Where’s Vivien?” Dela wondered sharply, with that tone in her voice that boded ill for the subject. “Where’s Vivien all this time?”

  “Probably at inventory,” I offered, not really thinking so. “I’ll go find her.”

  “I will,” my lady said, with that look in her eye.

  I kept working. That was safest.

  And it was not until my next trip topside that I found Viv, who was busy storing items in the freezer. Immaculate Vivien. No hair out of place. At least she was working.

  I added my own cart to the lot and began to help. “Did my lady go to rest?” I asked: it was evident Dela had found her—very plain in Viv’s sullen enthusiasm for work. But Dela was nowhere about the dining hall.

  “She went to take a bath,” Viv said, all brittle. “You might, you know.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t worked up a sweat.”

  Viv rounded on me, with such a look in her eyes, on her elegant oval face, that I had never seen. “You,” she said. Just you, as if that were all the fault. Her lips trembled; her eyes brimmed.

  “Viv,” I said, contrite, and reached out a hand: I was greatly shaken, not having seen that coming.

  She struck my hand down and turned her face away, went on about her work. My lady must have been very hard with Viv. And now and again while we worked she would wipe fiercely at her eyes.

  “Viv, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, was it your doing?” She looked at me again. It would have made me laugh, because I had never seen Viv’s face like that with the mascara smeared like soot. But I was far from laughter. It was like seeing wreckage. Viv started to cry; and I put my arms about her, just held on to her until she had gotten her breath and shoved me hard.

  That was all right. Viv was afraid as well as mad and tired. I knew what that felt like. “It’s all stupid,” she said. “It’s none of it going to work.”

  Viv indeed had a mind.

  “Griffin says they might be trying a rescue after all,” I offered.

  “They’re not,” Vivien judged, and turned her shoulder to me.

  I emptied the cart and took it down for another load.

  So my lady had had her fling at work and bravely at that, and now she had exhausted herself enough to rest; but I had things yet to do. And Griffin and those with him—they were only now bringing their equipment up the corridor to lift it to middecks, clatter and bang.

  It was lonely down there after they had gone; I worked there by myself, loaded up two carts with the last that we had to bring up.

  What if it should break through of a sudden, I thought. What if it should be now? I pushed my carts into the lift and rode it up into safer levels, the hammering distant up here and easier to forget.

  So we fought, with our wits and our small resources; and the deadliest things we had found in all the ship were the welders that Griffin used to fortify our poor shattered bow.

  Viv was not talkative. It was not a good day for her, not in any sense. She sulked about the things we had to do together, and her hands shook when the pounding from belowdecks would get loud. She complained of headache; doubtless that was true. I thought that I might have one if I slowed down and let it have its way.

  But Dela came out of her retreat again, bathed and fresh, and helped us, which I think scandalized Viv, and which Viv blamed me for. All the same the working comforted Dela, and she smiled sometimes, braver than we when she had a task under her hands: only sometime the facade cracked and I could see how nervous she was, how her eyes would dart to small sounds. Viv hardly knew how to react to this: I think it was the first time my lady had ever gotten to watch Viv work, which was, excepting Viv’s trained functions, dilatory and involved much motion over little result. And Viv was trying to reform this tendency under that witness, but habit was strong. It would have been funny except that poor Viv was so distracted and so unhinged I remembered the tears.

  We knew, when we were finished, how much of everything we had, and we had taken a great deal of it into storage on main level, including bedding enough for us all if we had to sleep here; and we had filled the huge tanks for Vivien’s domain topside. Vats and pipes everywhere up there; but there was a lot of water involved, and we felt the more secure for that. That was another thing that gnawed at Viv, because my lady insisted on Viv telling her what it all did while I was there to hear it—because, my lady said, something might happen to one of us. Poor Viv. That was not the thing she wanted to think about.

  But came the time that all of us had run out of strength, and Griffin’s party came up to the dining hall, all dirty as they were, to the dinner we fixed on the last of our strength—even Viv’s. And Lynn looked ready to fall over on the table, sitting there stirring her soup about without the strength to get it to her mouth, and Modred was as down as I had ever seen him, not mentioning the others, who had burns and cuts from the metal and who looked as if a dinner at table was only further torment. They would probably rather a sandwich in solitude, and maybe not that. Griffin was drawn as the rest of them ... as worn, as miserable; but he smiled for Dela, and made a joke about frustrating our attackers.

  Then there was a signal from the bridge, which meant that something had happened, and we staggered away from our supper, all of us.

  It knew, I thought, it knew that we were trying to rest: our hammering had stopped, and maybe it picked up that silence inside. So we stood shivering on the bridge, under the images of the dead ships and the bleeding space outside, and listened to that nonsensical sound that rumbled and roared like a force of nature, Even Dela was there to hear, and Viv—Viv just blanked, frozen in the center of the room.

  “Respond?” Modred asked.

  “No,” Griffin said.

  “I might point out—”

  “No,” Griffin said. “No more reaction to it. They know too much about us already, I’m afraid.”

  Modred cast a look toward my lady, not real defiance; but there was that manner to it. “I might point out we have defenses. But they’re worth nothing in the long term. We should talk while we have something to talk with. I have a program—”

  “No,” Dela said, ending that. Modred only looked tired, and turned back to the board.

  “Leave it,” Griffin said. “All of you—go below and sleep. All of us can use it. Hear?”

  We heard. Modred shut down; Gawain left his place, and Lynn and Percy did. Myself, I wanted nothing more than to go down to my own bed and rest. I saw my lady go off arm in arm with Griffin; and remembered the dishes with an ache in my bones and a wish to leave them and go curl up somewhere.

  No Viv. Percy had gotten her by the arm and they were on their way out the door. Only Lance stayed, looking like death and a
ll but undone.

  “Can’t come,” I said. “I’ve got the dishes.”

  “I’ll help,” he said. We worked like that, Lance and I, both of us staff and responsible for our born-man and for the things not in anyone else’s province. So he came with me. I don’t know which of us was more tired, but I reckoned it was Lance: his poor hands were burned and the china rattled in them—I reckoned that water would hurt on the burns so I did all the washing.

  And after that, we went to see to our born-men, who were together: nothing to do there. Dela and Griffin were locked in each other’s arms and fast asleep. I looked back at Lance who had come closer to the door, made a sign for quiet—but he only stood there, and a great sadness was on his face.

  I dimmed the lights they had forgotten or not cared about. “Come on,” I whispered, and took him by the arm, walked with him outside and closed the door.

  “Go on down,” he said. “I’ll stay hereabouts.”

  “Lance, you shouldn’t. You’re not supposed to.”

  “He’s good to me—you know that? He knows, like you said. And he loves her. And all of today—he never had any spite. Nothing of the kind. And he might have. Anyone else would have. But he treats me no different for it.”

  “He’s all right,” I said finally. “Better than any of the others.”

  “Not like any of the others,” Lance said. He shook his head, walked away with his head bowed—the way Griffin had walked away that night, as sad. Not like the others. Not someone Dela would tire of. Not someone to put aside. And kind. Maybe he wished for Robert back. But Lance was in the trap. He had so little selfishness himself—he opened to generosity. He was made that way.

  “Lance.” I caught up with him, took his arm. “Lance—I don’t want to be alone.” I said it, because he had too much pride. He let me take his hand. “Come downstairs,” I asked him.

  He yielded, never saying anything, but he walked with me to the lift, and I was all but shaking with relief, for pulling him out of that. We should have a little comfort, we two, a night lying close, among our friends.

  We came in ever so quietly, Lance and I, into the mostly dark sleeping quarters ... stood there a moment for our eyes to adjust, not making any noise. Everyone was on the couches, and a tape was running; the screen flickered. I was sorry that we had missed the start, because it was maybe the best thing to do with the night, to be sure of quiet dreams. We could still hear the hammering.

  We might slip in on the dream, I thought: when my eyes had adjusted enough that I reckoned not to bump into anything, I crossed the room and looked up at the screen to know what sort it was.

  And then my heart froze in me, and I flew back across the room to my locker, and Lance’s. I felt there, on the shelf, but the tape was gone; was in the machine; running, and they were locked into it—all of them.

  Maybe my face showed my terror. Lance had seen; he looked only half disturbed until he looked at me, and reached out his hand for mine. “Viv,” I said, reckoning who would have stolen. “O Lance, we’re ruined, we’re lost, they shouldn’t—”

  “We can’t stop it,” he said, half a whisper. “We daren’t stop it halfway—not that one. They’d never sort it out.”

  “It’s my fault,” I mourned. “Mine.” But he put his arms about me and held, which was comfort so thorough I had no good sense left and held to him, which was all I wanted.

  “We might use it too,” he said. “If it’s beyond stopping. I want it, Elaine.”

  So did I, for twisted, desperate reasons—even if I lost him again. So we joined them, helpless in the dream that had gotten loose on the ship, that filled the Maid and told us what we might have been.

  But for some of us it was cruel.

  XI

  Then that same day there past into the hall

  A damsel of high lineage, and a brow

  May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom,

  Hawk-eyes; and lightly was her slender nose

  Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower;

  She into hall past with her page and cried,

  “... Why sit ye there?

  Rest I would not, Sir King, an I were king,

  Till ev’n the lonest hold were all as free

  From cursed bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth

  From that best blood it is a sin to spill.

  My name? ...

  Lynette my name.”

  It was a good way to have passed that aching night—if it had been any other tape. We were free for a time; we knew nothing about the terrible place where we were.

  I loved and lost again. But I knew the terms. And there was Lance with me, who had learned the tape under his own terms, and who had made his peace with what he was. He was trapped, the same as I was. And not afraid anymore. His world made sense to him, like mine to me.

  But when we woke, with the hammering still going on the same as before—when we stirred about with the light slowly brightening to tell us it was another morning in this place—it was hard to look at one another. Everyone—crew and staff—moved about dressing, and no one looked anyone else in the eye.

  That was what it did to us.

  I went over and took the tape myself, and no one said anything; I stored it in my locker again. But they all knew where, and I reckoned so long as we lasted in this place, they would not let it alone. Could not let it alone. Lance came and laid his hand on mine on the locker door, and pressed my fingers. He was afraid too, I thought. Of the others. Of what now we knew we were.

  Only there was Percy, who came to us, his face all distressed. Who just came, and stopped and stared. Gentle Percivale.

  “It’s a tape,” I said out loud, so they all could hear. “It’s an old story, an amusement. Lady Dela owns it and let me borrow it. You have to understand.”

  But there was no easy understanding. Not for that.

  “Viv said—” Percivale began, and dropped it.

  Vivien. I looked her way; and Vivien met my eyes by accident. She was just putting her jacket on; and her head came up. It was not a good look, that. She turned away and began sweeping her hair back, to put it up again in its usual immaculate order.

  “We had better get to the bridge,” Gawain said then quietly, “and see how the night went.” He started to the door, looked back. Percivale had joined him. And Lynn. “Modred?”

  Everyone looked. Modred had been sitting on the couch getting his boots on—and still sat there, inward as ever. And when Gawain called him he got up and went for the door, as silent, as quiet as ever.

  But we got up afraid of him, as we had never been. And it was wrong. I felt it wrong. I intercepted him on his way, took his arm.

  “It’s amusement,” I said. But Modred had always been innocent of understandings—without sex, without nerves. “It’s a thing that happened a long time ago, if it ever happened.”

  His dark eyes fixed on mine, and I saw something in the depth of them ... I couldn’t tell what. It might have been pain; or just analysis—something that for a moment quickened him. But he had nothing to say. Our Modred could make jokes, the lift of a shoulder, the rhythm of his moves; but this morning he was—quiet. Without this language. He used the quieter story tapes; mostly I suspect they bored him, and the more violent ones were outside his understanding. But when one is tired, when one’s defenses are down to begin with—

  “Yes,” Modred said, agreeing with me, the way we agree with born-men, to make peace and smooth things over. And he went away with the others.

  “Vivien,” I said, turning around. “Vivien, you’ve done this.”

  She went on pinning up her hair.

  “Let be,” Lance said, taking me by the shoulders.

  She was dangerous, I thought to myself, and she ran all our lifesupport up there; and our future food supply; all the technical things in the loft.

  But maybe—I tried to persuade myself—that was what we were all doing this morning: maybe we had all learned to look at each other askew; and, we were cur
sed to know how others saw us.

  “Modred,” I mourned. “O Modred.”

  “It should never have happened,” Lance said. “It was my fault, not yours.”

  “How do we prepare against a thief?” I asked, meaning Viv. But Viv had finished her dressing and swept past us without a look.

  “My fault,” Lance repeated doggedly.

  “They’ll sort it out,” I insisted, turning round to look at him. “You did. I have.”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said, “of either of us.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “I don’t.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Aren’t we—whatever tapes they put in?”

  I had no answer for that. It was too much like what I feared.

  “Elaine,” he said sadly. Touched my face as he would have touched Dela’s. “Elaine.”

  And he walked away too.

  My fault, I echoed in myself. When they all had gone away, I knew who was to blame, who had been selfish enough to bring that tape where it never should have been.

  “What’s wrong?” Dela asked at the breakfast table, and sent my heart plunging. We sat, all of us silent: had sat that way. “Is something wrong no one’s saying?”

  “We’re tired,” Griffin said, and patted her hand atop the table. “All of us.” He laughed desperately. “What else could be wrong?”

  It got a laugh from Dela. And a silence then, because some of us had humor enough to have laughed with her if we had had the heart.

  O my lady, I wanted to say, flinging the truth out, we’ve heard what we never should; I stole what I never ought; we know what we are ... and that was the terror of it, that we were and were not, locked together in this place apart from what was real.

  “Elaine?” she asked, and touched my face, lifted my chin so that I had to look her in the eyes. “Elaine, don’t be frightened.”

  “No,” I said. It did her good perhaps, to comfort us. The lion banner looked down on us where we sat at breakfast at the long table among all the deadly things we had gathered. I heard the trumpets blowing when my lady looked at us like that. But louder was the hammering that had never ceased.