“What are you?” Jillan said, driving the dagger deeper. There was panic in her voice.
“Don’t be afraid,” Rafe said. But Paul went out—out, like the extinguishing of a light, and Jillan backed away, shaking her head at his offered hand.
“No,” she said. “No.” And fled, raced ghostlike through the wall.
His own doppelganger still stood there, naked, hands empty at his sides, with anguish in his eyes.
“I tried,” the doppelganger said with a motion of his hand. “I tried. Rafe—they’ll come back. Sooner or later they’ll have to come back. There’s nowhere else to go.”
Rafe sank down where he stood, where a node made a sitting-place against the wall. He ached in every bone and muscle, and looked up at the doppelganger in unadulterated misery.
“Rafe,” the doppelganger said. “I think they’re dead. You understand me? They haven’t found anything of themselves. I’m not sure there’s anything left to find.”
Rafe shut his eyes, willing it all away; but the doppelganger had come closer when he opened them. It knelt in front of him, waiting, his own face projecting grief and sympathy back at him.
“You understand?” the doppelganger said. “They’re copies. That’s all I found. They’re like me.”
He wanted to scream at it to go away, to be silent, but a strange self-courtesy held him still to listen, to sit calmly with his hands on his knees and stare into his own face, knowing the doppelganger’s pain, knowing it to the height and depth, what it cost and how it hurt. Jillan dead. And Paul. He had known it in his heart for hours, that this place, this graveyard caricature of Lindy had all the important pieces in it. The console. The EVAPOD. Himself. All the working salvage that was left. “Do they know?” he asked, half insane himself.
“I can’t tell.” The image remained kneeling there. “On the one hand they could be right; they thought—they thought this was illusion. Maybe it is. But it was too strong a one for them.”
“It’s not illusion.”
“I don’t think so either.”
“God, this is mad!”
“I know. I know it is. But I think you’re right. We split—I remember all this pain. I remember—these arms waving about. It hurt, I never remember any pain like that—”
“Cut it out.!”
“I think—that was where they died.”
“Shut up!”
That Rafe tucked up his knees, rested his forehead on his arms—grief incarnate, mirror of his own, mirror until it hurt to look at himself, knowing what he felt, seeing it mimed in front of him. Rafe Two lifted his head at last, stared at him with ineffable bleakness, and he began to shiver himself in long slow tremors.
“Cry,” the soft voice came to him. “I did, awhile, for what it’s worth. I cried a lot. But it can’t change what is. Don’t you think I want to believe you’re not real? That we’re all of us all right? I wish I could believe that. You wish you could get rid of me. But you can’t. And we aren’t.”
“Damn you!” He leaped up, ran to the console, seized on the first thing he could find and flung it at the doppelganger. It was one of his music tapes, which passed through the image and hit the wall, falling harmless as the curse; and the doppelganger just sat there, breathing, doing everything it should not. Its breath came hard, one long heave of its naked shoulders, its head bowed as if it fought for self-control. It mastered itself, better than he; or having fewer options. It was resignation that looked back at him with his own face, out of bruised and weary eyes, and he could not bear that defeat. He sank down at the console and gasped for air that seemed too thin, with thoughts that seemed too rarified to hold without suffocating. Things swirled about him: Dead, dead, dead—
Die too, why can’t you?
He did not cry. Sitting there, he shivered until his muscles ached and cramped, until lack of air brought him to bow his head on the console.
“He’s real,” he heard his own voice say; and Jillan’s then: “No,” so that he opened his eyes and found them standing there, all of them, his dead, his living self—
“O God,” he said, “God, Jillan, Paul—don’t go, don’t go this time.” He levered himself up, unsteady on his feet, offered them his hand, even knowing they could not touch it. “Stay here. Don’t run.”
His doppelganger walked to him, stood close by him, ghostly thin, standing where he stood in parodied embrace. There was no sensation from it, only a confusion of image, as if it had superimposed itself deliberately.
“Don’t go,” it echoed him. “Don’t you see—we’re the illusion. Projected here. We’re androids. That’s all we are. Made out of him, his mind, Jillan’s, Paul’s. We’re the shadows. He’s the real one.”
They stood there, the two of them, staring at him. “It doesn’t make sense,” Jillan said in a small voice. “Rafe—we can’t be dead. Can we?”
Rafe himself sank down to his knees on the gossamer-covered carpet, squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to clear it of all the accumulated lunacy.
“I think,” said the other Rafe, standing over him, about him, a moving pale shimmer—”I think it’s very likely, if we can’t find the bodies. I think you are.”
“Then what are we?” Paul yelled.
“Androids,” said Rafe Two. “Something like that, at least. They made us. And the originals are gone.” He walked over near the console, touched the edges of the seats with insubstantial fingers. “We never rigged Lindy for much stress.”
“Something that they made,” Jillan said. “is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” Rafe said, himself, looking up at her from where he knelt. She was still in every particular his sister, that look, that quiet steady sense. It shattered him. “Yes. Something that they made.”
She stared in his direction a moment, then shrugged and laughed, taking a step away. “I don’t feel dead.” A second step, so that she began to fade out at the wall. “I’m going out of focus, aren’t I?” Soberly, with horror beneath the surface. “It’s a pretty good copy. Aren’t I?”
“Stop it!” Paul said.
“Jillan’s right,” Rafe Two said, by the EVApod. “It was the seats, understand? We never rigged for more than two or three G at most. We got a lot more than that. It flung us off. Remember? Autopilot went crazy. My fault, maybe. But I couldn’t stop us. Nothing could, our tanks depleted—Couldn’t if we’d had Lindy at max. Lindy couldn’t cope with it.”
“We’re not dead,” Paul said.
“Whatever we are,” Rafe Two said, folding his insubstantial arms, “I guess we don’t have that problem. Not anymore we don’t.”
“We aren’t dead!”
“Let be,” Rafe said, hating his own tendencies to push a thing. Paul hated to be pushed.
“We’re us-prime,” Jillan said. “That’s what we are.” She came and squatted near him, looking at him closely for the first time, her hands clasped together on her knees, her knees drawn up. “I wish you could lend me a blanket, brother.”
“I wish I could,” he said. “Are you cold?” That she should be cold seemed to him the last, unbearably cruelty.
She shook her head. “Just the indignity of the thing. I tell you, when we meet what did this to us, when we meet them, I’ll sure insist on my clothes back.”
“I’ll insist on more than that,” he said.
“You’ve already met it!” Paul shouted, over by the wall. “That’s Rafe—the one like us! Ask it where we are. Ask it what kind of jokes it likes to play, what it’s up to, where it came from, what it wants from us!”
“I’m alive,” Rafe said.
“He’s the one that bleeds,” said his doppelganger, from close by. “Look at his face. He’s the one that survived the wreck. Not a mark on any of the rest of us—is there?” Rafe Two squatted down nearby, elbows on his knees. “At least,” he said to Jillan’s wraith, “you’ve got title to a name. Rafe and I—we aren’t the same anymore, not quite. We split. He’s been alone and I’ve been chasin
g you, and on that reckoning we get less and less in step, while you—you are his sister, much as mine; you took up where the other left off—permanently. And so did you, Paul. That’s why it seems to you you’re still alive. But I can tell myself apart from him. I’m Rafe who found that one lying unconscious on the floor; and he’s the one who met himself face to face awake. Different perspectives. Dead’s meaningless to you. You’re not that Jillan Murray; you’re her hypothesis, you’re what she would have done—being met with that place where we woke up. You’re not that Paul Gaines. You’re just living your present on his memories—the way I split off from his, and did things different than he did.”
Paul came slowly away from the wall, stood there and shook his head. “I won’t give in to this. You’re wrong.”
“At least,” Rafe said, “sit down. Sit down. Please.”
“It’s dark out there,” said Paul, as if it were a matter of petulant complaint.
“Rafe said,” Rafe answered him. “Stay here. Please.”
Paul came and joined them, farthest away, crouched on the floor and plucked disinterestedly at a shred of gossamer he failed even to touch.
“We’re interested in the same things, aren’t we?” Rafe said. “We’re still partners. We need to find out where we are. And I love you,” he added, because it was so, and he had not said it often enough. He remembered what he was talking to, but it was as close as he could come. “I do love you two. ...”—To convince himself, he thought.
“I know,” Jillan said. Her eyes were dreadful, as if they saw too much. “I know that, Rafe.”
“Nothing for me,” said Rafe Two, who sat by him mirrorlike, arms about naked knees. “You see what it is to be surplus? Better to be dead. At least there’s appreciation.”
“Shut it up,” Rafe said. “I always had a bad sense of timing. I won’t put up with it from you.”
“Stop it!” Paul said.
“It’s like being schizophrenic,” Rafe said, looking at the floor, pulling with his fingers at another loose bit of gossamer that refused to tear. “It’s really strong, this stuff.”
“What are we going to do?” Jillan asked.
“I don’t see any profit in sitting still,” Paul said. “Do you?”
“What do you suggest? It—they—whatever—whatever, runs this place knows where we are. When it gets bored, it’ll find us.”
Paul glared at him.
“I don’t want to sit here,” Jillan said.
“There’s the corridors,” said Rafe Two. “We could try to go as far as we can. As far as we can stay with each other.”
“We could try that,” Rafe said.
The outsiders moved slowly down the corridor which had been allotted to them and there was, immediately, throughout the ship, a focusing, of attention.
“They’re a hazard,” [] said. [] had tried them once, but <> had interfered in no uncertain terms and [] kept respectful distance.
“Let them go,” said <^>. <^> was constantly disposed to gentleness. It was part of <^>’s madness, forgetting <^>’s heredity.
But ranged all about the perimeters, gathering others of ’s disposition: there were many such aboard. There were two or three fiercer, but none more devious, except maybe the segments of = <-> = = <+> = that grew longer with every cannibalistic acquisition. = <-> = = <+> lg = had fifteen other segments, currently at liberty, and it was a question where these were or what the whole matrix thought, breaking apart and sending segments of itself everywhere in search of information.
laughed to self, loving chaos, seeing opportunity.
Trishanamarandu-kepta devoted only a part of <> ’s mind to this maneuvering. There were other things to occupy <>’s mind, a wealth of things the little ship had given up, records, names.
Of the simulacra themselves, three templates existed, which were deliberately dissociated in fragments.
From those templates <> integrated three temporary copies.
Rafe waked, aware of nakedness, of dark, of Paul and Jillan close beside him.
He wept, recalling pain, got to his knees and shook at Jillan’s bare shoulder. “Jillan,” he said.
The eyes opened, fixed. Jillan began to tremble, to convulse in spasms, to scream long tearing screams.
“Jillan!” Rafe yelled, trying to hold her. Paul was awake too, trying to restrain her and evade her blows.
These were temporary copies, easily erased, and served as comparison against which <>’s own symbol systems could be examined.
<> tried one on. It proved difficult, and retreated into gibberish; <> shut it down.
There remained Rafe and Jillan. The one called Rafe seemed the easiest of entry. The most stable seemed Jillan, and <> shut Rafe-mind down for the moment, to consider Jillan’s, which bent and flexed and made defensive mazes of its workings—giving way quickly and then proving vastly resilient.
“Rafe,” Jillan cried as they waked together in this dark place, and Rafe stared at her, leaning backward on his arms, seeming unable to do more than shiver. “There was—” he said, started to say, and cried out and fell back.
“Rafe!” she cried, and shook at him, but he was loose as if someone had broken him, and then he went away, just vanished, as if he had never been.
“Rafe!” she screamed at the vacant air, at the ceiling, and the dark. “Paul!” She scrambled up and threatened the invisible with empty hands and great violence.
It would fight, this Jillan-mind. <> learned that. The passengers who hovered near to witness this were profoundly disturbed.
“<> is taking risks again,” whispered in far recesses of the ship. “One day <> will miscalculate. Remember = = = = before = = = = turned cannibal? <> did not foresee that either.”
<> ignored these whispers, being occupied with <>’s insertion into the Jillan-mind.
Who are you? Jillan-mind asked <>. She wept; she fought the intrusions and when she no longer could do that she took in the flood with the peculiar strength she had and started trying to bend it to her shape.
She looked at , which had come to hover near, and bent <>’s thoughts to notice the observer in the dark.
“I don’t trust that one,” she declared, and <> laughed for startlement, in the rest of <>’s mind, which went on seeing things from outside, and managing <>’s body, and doing the other things <> did in the normal course of <>’s existence.
Then <> moved in Jillan-mind abruptly and without gentleness. <> brushed aside defenses and began to take what <> wanted. Jillan screamed at <> in anger and in pain and finally, because <> filled all the pathways of her mind at once and ran out of storage, the scream changed character and reason.
<> meddled with this state for a moment, adjusting this, tampering with that. <> had known already that the storage was not adequate and now <> formed strategies, knowing the dimensions of what <> had. The pain went on, while <> probed connections and relationships.
Jillan stabilized again, regarded the dark and welcomed it with fierce enthusiasm and hunger.
<> erased her then abruptly, for she had gotten far from the template, and ceased to be instructive. Or safe. In any sense.
<> made a second, fresher copy. <> could do that endlessly, in possession of the templates <> had made.
<> began again, with a surer, more knowing touch.
“Is it worth it?” <*> asked, straying close. “Let this creature go.”
<> turned the Jillan-face toward <*>’s undisguised self and felt a jolt of horror and of sound.
“That was unkind,” <> said, and destroyed her yet again.
“You’ll have to wait,” Rafe said, in their trek through endless corridors of endless green-gossamer and lumpish contours. Nothing had changed. They discovered nothing but endless sameness. He sank down, resting his back against the wall, and shut his eyes—opened them again for fear of finding himself alone, but the images stayed with him. They had sat down as if they needed to, Rafe Two foremost, always closest to him. He heaved
a breath, felt his bruised ribs creak, felt thirst and hunger. Tears leaked unwanted from his eyes, simple exhaustion, and horror at the sameness and the sight that kept staring back at him.
Ghosts. Solemn Rafe; Jillan being nonchalant; Paul glowering—they frightened him. He could not touch them. He could not hug them to him, ever again. He knew those looks—Paul’s when he had an idea and would not let it go, Jillan’s when she was on the edge, and tottering.
“Come on,” he said, “Jillan. Swear. Do something. Don’t be cheerful at me.”
Her face settled into something true and dour. She looked up at him, thinking—
—thinking what? he wondered. Seeing aliens behind his eyes? Or feeling her own death again?
“You all right?” he asked.
“Sure, sure I’m all right,” Jillan said, and looked about, redirecting what got uncomfortable. “Whatever designed this place was crazy, you know that?”
“Whatever keeps us here sure is,” Rafe Two said.
“It’s kept me alive,” Rafe answered the doppelganger. He wiped at his mouth, looked up and down the windings of the corridor—they had gone down this time, if the large chamber had been up. “That it leaves me alone, you know, is something encouraging.”
“There’s another place,” said Rafe Two. “It’s dark, and nothing, and if that’s its normal condition, that thing’s nothing like us at all.”
“It’s playing games,” Paul said; and Rafe looked at him with some little hope—it, then; Paul had stopped throwing that it at him, had perhaps reconceived his situation. “There’s no guarantee it has a logic, you figure that?”
“It’s got math; math’s logic,” Jillan said.
“A lunatic can add,” Paul said, gnawing at his lip. “I don’t get tired. You’re sweating and I don’t get tired.”
“Dead has advantages, it seems,” Rafe Two said.
“Shut up!”
“Try thinking,” Rafe said, shifting to thrust a leg between his doppelganger and Paul’s image. “Try thinking—how we go about talking to this thing. It tried to talk to us. Back there—at Endeavor, it made an approach. Maybe taking us was a mistake in the first place.”
Alternate Realities Page 25