Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  He looked at them askance, huddled within Gytha’s cloak. He was offered warm drink, coddled and surrounded by dozens more who had come, some with blankets and some with warm drink. “Well,” said one, “it’s raining outside; we might as well share the drink and wait.”

  And another: “Look at it,” in a tone of awe, but he was looking toward the statue, not the storm. “Look at it,” another echoed, and despite the water which dripped in curtains through the apertures, a thousand tiny waterfalls, they moved to see.

  Herrin watched them, drank and sat down where it was comfortable, warmed by their presence as much as any physical offering. John Ree was there, and Tib and Katya ... he knew all their names, every one. They were artists and stonemasons and cranemen and runners, all sorts; and there was a strangeness about them as they sat down and shared their drink and their raincoats and sent their voices echoing through the curtain-walls.

  It was the sculpture, Herrin thought suddenly. It was that which had taken them in, seized them by the emotions, a reality more powerful than theirs. He shivered, recalling the Others, and Leona Pace, the day they had been trapped into seeing each other, because sane and invisible had had, here, a common focus.

  The effect went on. It kept drawing them back. Those who had been in the Work belonged to it; sane, prideful people began to lose their realities as surely as the invisibles lost their own. The Work did not let them go. He thought that he should warn them. And then he tried to analyze his own impulse in that direction and suspected that.

  These people frightened him. Perhaps they frightened each other. He wanted to have things done, and it was all but finished. He had to look elsewhere, to other things, to the rest of his reality. And that was where the rest of them had failed. They could not make the break.

  “I think,” he confided to them, and voices fell silent and faces turned to him, “that we can take down the scaffolding tomorrow, all the lights, clean it and sweep it and prepare it ... It’s complete. It’s finished. But—” Their watching faces haunted him. He groped for something less final, hating his weakness. “There’ll be more projects. Others. Those of you who want will always have first priority when I choose crew; maybe here, maybe elsewhere. You’re the best. We can do more than this.”

  “I want on,” said John Ree. Voices tumbled over his, all asking. Me, Master Law, Me.

  He nodded. “All who want.” They were shameless as children. As if they were his. They stirred that kind of protective feeling in him, an embarrassment for their sakes where they had no shame. In fact they were comfortable about him, like an old garment; with them he could breathe easier, knowing things were going well without his watching, because they were good.

  “We can get that scaffolding down,” said John Ree, who was discharged and already had his pay.

  Herrin nodded. “Everything but mine. There’s still some polishing. That comes down ... maybe in two days.”

  There were nods, tacit agreement. The drink passed; the rain splashed down. There were warmer places to sit than where they were and certainly drier, but there was laughter and good humor, people who had known each other for months discussing families and how they had gotten on and what they had done with their bonuses and whose baby was born and who had what at market and how here and there people should meet for lunch or dinner. Herrin listened, both included and excluded, taking interest in the whole bizarre situation.

  Then the rain stopped and they went away again, taking their empty bottles and their tarps and wishing him well. Even some complete outsiders from the street who had sheltered here and stood amazed on the fringes of the group had gotten to talking, and bade each other farewell and in some instances invited each other to meet again on the streets as if they knew each other.

  And quietly, a lingering echo, the wet tap of footsteps which had been behind the curtain-walls, in the outer shells; Herrin heard them, casually, because there was no reason not to. He looked, and his skin drew, because he saw Others, whose midnight cloaks were wet, who did not depart, but stood there staring.

  He cleared his throat, shrugged, turned to the scaffolding and scrambled up again, taking up the polishing, which was tedious work but mindless. He dried the area with a cloth from his pocket, and took up the abrasive again, set to work, ignoring Gytha and Phelps and the others who stirred about disassembling some of the other scaffolding.

  He worked until his shoulders ached, and became awake, slowly, of the presence of a shadow at the foot of the scaffold.

  He looked down, drawn by a horrid fascination, fighting his own instincts, which knew, as from one night he had known, that something would be there.

  The invisible was looking up. It was Leona’s face framed within the midnight hood, her plump freckled face and her brown hair and her stout shape within the cloak. There was longing in her eyes, which looked up at the statue.

  “Leona,” he said, very, very softly, and frightened her and himself. “Are you all right, Leona?”

  She nodded, almost imperceptibly. There was a vast silence. Perhaps Gytha and Phelps were looking this way. No, they could not. It was like the wearing of the brooch—people would not see it because they dared not see it, because it was not right to see. And if people went on seeing ...

  There were solutions for the invisibles if people started seeing them. There was the Solution, which the State had always avoided; and he knew it and surely Leona Pace knew it, and he wished that he could look through her.

  She turned and walked away. He found himself shivering as if the wetness of the wood on which he was sitting had gotten through the tarp, or the coldness of the stone traveled up his hands into his heart. He thought that perhaps he should go home for the day, rest, drive himself no further. But that was to admit that something had happened. He looked at Gytha and Phelps, when a clatter drew his attention: they were working away, and probably they had not noticed.

  Or they were stronger than he at the moment.

  He shivered and steadied his hands enough to begin his polishing again. He felt everything slipping again, everything balanced on a precipice and ready to tumble over the edge. What did the rest of his life promise if this was the beginning: brilliance, leading to madness?

  There was a thunder in the sky that for the moment he attributed to the clouds and the rain, but it kept coming, and steadied, and he knew then what it was, that at the port a part of Waden’s reality had come to earth. A part of his own, at some time to come. He had no time for it at the moment, did not want to think about it ... yet. There was a cold spot where that knowledge rested, colder than the stone or the recent rain. He heard the shuttle come down and heard the noise stop. His mind kept running with the image, the prospect of Waden Jenks’s offworld negotiations, the world irrevocably widening, the walls all abolished, and nothing to do but keep staring at the horizons and widening and widening forever.

  He pursed his lips and dipped his cloth in the abrasive, concentrated on the curve he was smoothing, finger width by finger width.

  Something stirred near him, a step. Suddenly someone reached up near him and took the hammer. Leona, he thought; he did not want to see. There was the impression of midnight cloth in the corner of his eye. Slowly the tool moved off the platform, and there was a crash, metal on stone; he looked, alarmed.

  He stared within a blue hood at no human face, and at once his vision blanked and he caught for support against the statue itself. It went away, a shadow in his vision, and he stayed there with his heart beating against his ribs and the impression of what he had almost seen lingered in his vision, wide dark eyes, a dusky color like the cloth, and features ... he did not want to see. Ever.

  “Sir?” Carl Gytha asked, coming near the platform. “You all right, sir?”

  He nodded, shrugged, put himself to work again.

  Simple pilferage. He finished the place he had begun, calmly set himself at the next. It had gone long enough ... he could work late, drive himself just a little longer....

&nb
sp; ... get finished with this, once for all.

  No, he reminded himself. He had tried that and nearly broken himself. “I’m folding up,” he said. “Going back for the day.”

  “We’ll stay,” Gytha said, “by turns. Keep things from harm.”

  They came to help him down. He accepted the help, dusted himself off and started the walk home, for a decent supper and a little rest.

  They had seen, he persuaded himself. Even normal people saw as much as he had seen. They proved that, by offering to stay and protect things. He was not abnormal. Perhaps they had seen Leona Pace, too, and were too self-possessed to admit it. He had never been able to ask anyone. No one was able to ask anyone.

  He walked as far as the hedge and through the archway. He stopped then and blinked in surprise at the entourage which had come down Port Street and pulled up in front of the Residency. There were vehicles and troops; men in no-color uniforms ... with weapons. He had never seen the like, not in such numbers. They filled four trucks; a fifth was vacant, with soldiers all over the frontage of the Residency, and some in the doorway; and now came transports with what might be dignitaries. Those were not Kierkegaard vehicles, they had come from offworld. From up there and out there, and something larger than an ordinary shuttle had landed to carry all of that.

  His appetite deserted him. He walked across the street, between the trucks, startled as one of the Outsiders swung a gun in his direction.

  “Got out of here,” they told him in a strange accent. He gave them a foul look and walked on to the Residency steps, stared in outrage as one of those guarding the door barred his way with an extended arm.

  “I live here,” he said. “Get out of my way.”

  The soldier looked uncertain at that, and he pushed past in that moment, found more Outsiders in the halls inside. “You,” said a soldier near the desk, but the regular secretary intervened. “He’s Master Herrin Law.”

  “Master of what?” the offworlder asked.

  Herrin turned a second foul look on him and the man declined further questions. “I want this lot clear of my room,” he told the secretary.

  “Sir,” the secretary said meekly, caught between.

  “I’ll have supper in my room. Send the order.”

  “The First Citizen asked, if you should come in before midnight, sir, he’s in his office, sir.”

  Herrin said nothing, paused for a third look at the offworlder, young and unrecommended by his manner, which would have had him eaten alive at University: from bluster he had gone to a perceptible flinching. “Not quality material,” Herrin judged acidly, and walked off.

  He was trembling in every muscle. Outraged.

  Outsiders. Invisibles no less than Leona Pace. They were here, in the Residency, and Waden Jenks invited them in. He headed for the stairs, walked up the five flights of stairs and into a whole array of guards.

  “Out of my way,” he said, and walked through with the assumption they would not dare. One seized his arm and he glared at that man until the hand dropped.

  “Excuse me, sir. Presence up here has to be cleared.”

  “You’re incompetent and ignorant. Clear it.”

  “If you’ll tell me who you are, sir.”

  “Get the First Citizen out here. Now.”

  The hand left his arm. The man backed off, blinked and backed a few paces to Waden’s door, knocked on it. “Sir. Sir.”

  The door opened; Herrin walked toward it and soldiers shifted in panic. A rifle barrel slammed into his arm. He kept going nonetheless, through the door before they stopped him. Waden was there, risen from his chair among others.

  “Let him go,” Waden said at once, and Herrin stalked in, shedding the soldiers like so many parasites. “What is this?” Herrin asked.

  “Herrin Law,” Waden said, gesturing to the others. “Colonel Martin Olsen, Military Mission.”

  Herrin failed to follow the hand, stared at Waden instead. “The halls are cluttered. Something struck me—I call your attention to the matter.”

  “Citizen Law,” one of the Outsiders said, offering a hand. Herrin looked past the lot of them, smiled coldly, seeing Keye standing, in Student’s Black, by the wall of the ell the room made.

  “Keye, how pleasant to see you. I meant to come and call. Waden explained things. I owe you profound apologies for my desertion. You distressed me; I admit it freely. I’ve mended my ways, you see, moved into the Residency. Are you living here or just sleeping over?”

  Keye’s mouth quirked into a familiar smile. “Does it concern you?”

  “Herrin.”

  He looked at Waden, read behind the slow smile which was less amused than Keye’s.

  “First Citizen,” said the intrusive voice. “Would you explain?”

  Waden ignored it too. “Point taken, Artist. But there is a certain reality operative here that I choose. I’ll remind you of that.”

  “Construe it for me. I’ll decide if I want to participate.”

  “Bear with me. Master Herrin Law, let me present Colonel Martin Olsen, with that understanding.”

  The hand was offered a second time. Herrin looked the stout gray-haired man up and down, finally reached and scarcely touched the offered fingers. The hand withdrew.

  “Not an auspicious color,” he commented of the midnight clothing.

  “I agree,” said Waden. “Herrin, don’t be argumentative in this. A personal favor.”

  “There seems to have been a misunderstanding,” said the colonel. “If there was some difficulty, we extend an apology.”

  “Second mistake,” Herrin said, passing a glance past him on the way to Keye. “Are you going to wait for this or will you join me for dinner?”

  “I have a commitment,” she said. “Another time.”

  “I trust so,” he said. “Waden, I reserve judgment on your Reality. What do you purpose for them?”

  “Easier if you sit and join this.”

  “Another time.” He glanced down and brushed marble dust and abrasive from his black-clad thigh. “I’m hungry; I find no prospect here.”

  “First Citizen,” said the invisible voice, carefully modulated.

  “He’s a University Master,” Waden said. “Colonel, I suggest you withdraw that escort of yours to the suggested perimeter immediately, and trust us for your security; the scope of this incident is wider than may appear to you.”

  “Go,” the colonel said. Waved his hand. There was a hesitation. “Out.” His forces began to melt away.

  “I’m going to supper,” Herrin said.

  “Citizen Law,” said the colonel. “We’re anxious to have an understanding.”

  Herrin turned and walked to the door. “Keye, Waden,” he paused to say, “good evening.”

  “Herrin,” Waden warned him. “They will be confined to the port area.”

  “That is the appropriate place.”

  “There will be no intrusion.”

  “Good evening.”

  “Good evening, Herrin.” Waden walked forward, set a hand on his shoulder, and pulled him into a gentle embrace with a pat on the arm, then let him go again. It was odd, without particular emotion, neither passionate nor personal; it was for the invisible, and Herrin suffered it with some humor, patted Waden’s arm as well, exchanged a wryly amused look at Keye, and left, into a hall now deserted.

  But he was disturbed at the prospect of Outsiders, and his heart was still beating quite rapidly. It was begun, Waden’s work, Waden’s art. He felt a residue of anger, and at the same time tried to reason it away ... for whatever was begun in there, whatever—and at the moment he had no wish to divert himself with speculations—it meant a new policy and program which would widen more than Waden’s reality: it was his own which was being expanded. Things which he had set in motion were simply coming into play and, he reasoned, perhaps it was as well, with his own Work almost finished, that another phase should begin unfolding. He was melancholy with a sense of anticlimax, that somehow he had expected more elat
ion in his own accomplishment than he felt at the moment.

  Keye occurred to him, a recollection of her quiet regard in that room, her understated presence ... her silences, which warned him that whatever was underway, Keye never announced her programs, that she perhaps deluded herself of power, and might do things without warning.

  What have I said to her? he wondered, but he had always been reticent. In his heart he had always known that Keye was apt to undertake such a maneuver. He had never spilled information to her which he did not ultimately destine for Waden’s ears.

  But he might have given her silent communications.

  And she had deserted him at the moment when his own accomplishment was highest. She had never come to admire his work, not that he ever knew. She had watched it until the closing of the dome sealed it, but she had never seen the heart of it.

  Had not, he supposed, wanted that influence upon her. Not yet. Perhaps she would never come; would always evade it. That evidenced a certain fear of his strength and talent. He decided so, more satisfied when he put it in that perspective. And Waden avoided it; in another kind of fear, he thought, fear of disappointment, perhaps-—or the enjoyment of anticipation. He knew Waden, knew well enough Waden’s unwillingness to be led; of course Waden was going to feign nonchalance at the last moment, was going to occupy himself with whatever he could and ignore him as long as he could.

  He felt more and more confident. He smiled to himself as he walked down the stairs to his own apartment, a stairway now clear of strangers and invisibles.

  That night he stood at the window to look out on the city and there was a darkness where before lights had shone over the dome. He missed the glow, and yet the darkness itself was a sign of completion. Generations to come might want to light the Square by night; but for his part, it belonged in the sun, which gave it essence. He turned his face from the window and paced, restless, his thoughts more toward the port than, this night, toward Jenks Square.