Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Why did you go to your old house, and to those people?”

  “Not satisfied with my answer?”

  “No.”

  He folded his arms across his ribs and stared at all the lights. “Well, it doesn’t make sense.”

  And after a moment: “Why go, Sbi? Answer my questions.”

  “But this is what I’ve lived my life for.”

  “What, ‘this’? What this?”

  Sbi rested a hand on his shoulder. “That you give me back my faith. That I see our destroyers have the capacity to create. For one who believes in the whole universe, to one who doesn’t ... how can I explain?”

  Herrin looked up at the sky above the city.

  “We’ve become part of it again,” Sbi said.

  “And if we all die, Sbi? Somewhere in your universe, somewhere out there—is there some world dying tonight?”

  “Do you feel so?”

  “O Sbi.” He shivered, and shook his head. And started down the slope, losing sight of the city among the hills.

  Sbi overtook him, a soft pacing beside him in the grass, company in the dark.

  “I don’t think,” Sbi said, “that the port market is likely to be open. The Outsiders were unfriendly to it. And without it—invisibles will go hungry; and some will pilfer in-town and some will trade for what those pilfer; and some who are ahnit will have gone away.”

  “Best they should,” he said glumly. He considered what he should do, what there was to say ... to Waden Jenks.

  Try reason again? He had no doubt that Waden could kill him. Likely there were Outsiders about who would never let him close enough to say anything at all. They walked among the hills a long while, back and forth among the troughs and through the sweet-smelling grass. He savored the time finally, for what it was, because of the grass and the smell and the sounds and the hills and the sky. And Sbi’s presence. That too.

  Then he rounded the shoulder of a hill and had a limited view of the city again, faint jewels against the dark.

  And some of them were red.

  “Sbi?—Sbi, what do you make of that?”

  “The port,” Sbi said.

  “It’s not fire. It’s not that.” The lights flashed. There was a whole cluster of them. The unwonted sight disturbed him. It was an Outsider phenomenon. He recalled the shuttles which had lifted, more activity than Freedom had ever had from Outsiders. He thought of Waden, and increasingly he was afraid—for Waden, for Keye, for all of them down there who had started to disturb more than they knew how to see.

  “Let me go to explore this thing,” Sbi said. “I know where to go, how to move and when to move. Let me go ask questions. Some of us will have seen this thing close at hand.”

  “No,” he said at once, and started off again, hurrying. “No, we’re both going. I have a place to go, too, and questions to ask, and I know where to ask them.”

  “A ship,” said Sbi. “Herrin Law, look, see it.”

  Something was lifting from the port. He began to laugh, a breath of relief. “A launch, that’s all. Maybe it looks like that from up here.”

  “No,” said Sbi. “I’ve seen, and it doesn’t.”

  The ship climbed, shot off with blinking lights.

  And exploded.

  “Sbi!”

  “I see,” the ahnit said.

  The flower died in the heavens. Suddenly there were bursts on land, flares which curled up silent, firelit smoke that traced toward the city.

  Herrin began to run, downhill. “Wait,” Sbi called to him, hastening after. Herrin ran, slid, slowed when his ribs shot pain through him and shortened his breath ... he walked then, because that was all he could do, and the bursts of fire continued, stitching their way through Kierkegaard.

  “Waden’s Outsiders,” he mourned to Sbi. “Waden’s ambitions . . .”

  XXX

  Colonel Olsen: (by com) That’s Singularity. You’ll be gratified to know, First Citizen, that we’ve finally found McWilliams and his lot. So much for your information.

  Waden Jenks: (by com) Do something.

  Colonel Olsen: Oh, we got him, First Citizen. That’s a certainty. Only how many others are there?

  Waden Jenks: (Silence).

  Colonel Olsen: First Citizen, what damage to landing facilities?

  Waden Jenks: (Silence.)

  There were fires, in the grass, a wall of fire which swept away to the sea, a curtain of red and orange two stories high that made black skeletons of trees and bushes and glared eerily in the water of the Camus.

  There were fugitives, who straggled away from the city along the Camus-Kierkegaard road, and crossed the bridge over the firelit waters. Some were terribly burned, in shock; some, perhaps mad, had flung themselves into the river and drifted there, dark pinwheels in the red current.

  “Stop,” Sbi pleaded, catching gently at Herrin’s cloak. “Stop and consider.”

  Herrin did not, but wove his way across the concrete bridge of the Camus, past scarecrow figures headed away, past a cloaked figure who reached out hands and caught at his companion, telling Sbi something in urgent booms and hisses. Herrin delayed, wanting Sbi if Sbi wanted to stay with him—saw Sbi accept the other’s cloak and fling it on, bid the other some manner of farewell, but the other ahnit, naked of the cloak, stood staring as Sbi came away to go with him. “It’s bad in the city,” Sbi said. “Some of the buildings are afire.”

  He had reckoned so. He thought of his work, vulnerable in the center of the city, and hastened along the paved highway. It occurred to him that another burst of fire could come down on them at any time. He looked up as they walked and saw nothing but the smoke, the stars obscured.

  Breath failed him finally, where the road bent from the riverside, where the buildings began and he could see the city street-lights dark as they had never been, and fire. He saw the dome, distant from him, outlined against burning, and stood there, trying to get his wind. There were no fugitives here. He could see figures beyond, but those who were running for the highway had already run. Here, from this perspective up Main from the highway, there was only himself and Sbi, Sbi a reliable, comforting presence.

  “Herrin,” Sbi said quietly. “Herrin, were they weapons and not some accident?”

  “I think they were.” He drew a deep and painful breath. “Waden said ... of a certain man ... that he could level the city. It’s not so bad as leveled, Sbi, but it’s all gone wrong; and whatever I could do—it’s too late. Waden’s new allies haven’t helped. And I don’t think my people will want this reality.”

  “They’ll see.”

  “They’ll go mad. They’ll not survive this.”

  “I thought,” said Sbi, “that ahnit had learned all the bitter things humans had to teach. I had not imagined this.”

  “Come on. Come on, Sbi, or go back. This can’t be what you waited so long to find. Maybe I’d better go from here on my own.”

  “No,” said Sbi, and stayed with him.

  He walked slowly in the dark streets, deserted streets, with pebblestone and concrete buildings, faces all alike, eyeless black windows, open doors likewise black. Ahead of them a wall of flame burned in the city, outlining the dome and everything beyond. “It’s the hedge,” Herrin realized suddenly. “The hedge is burning, up by the Residency, the University. ...”

  So was a building close to them, somewhere near First and Main, beyond, the dome, a steady spiral of firelit smoke. A warehouse, perhaps, or something more tragic: apartments were everywhere.

  The dome was before them. Fire showed through the perforations here and there like tears of light. There was, even here, a wound, a fall of broken stone where the outermost shell of the dome was damaged. Herrin saw it and ached, walking across the paving and up to the entry and within.

  People huddled here, citizens, invisibles ... there was no telling in the deep shadow; the dome had become a shelter. Children wept, setting off bell-like echoes, a cacophony of mourning and sad voices. Herrin walked through, and S
bi with him, past the outer, triple shell and the curtain-walls, into the central dome, where the face of Waden Jenks survived untouched. Fire provided the light through the perforations now, dim and baleful, and cast the features into torment.

  Herrin shut his eyes from the sight, looked back at Sbi’s hooded form, saw beyond him dark masses of refugees. His own workers would be among them. If anyone would have come here, they would have come, as they always had. Fearfully he lifted his clumsy hands, pushed back his hood, knowing well the enormity of what he was doing; but they had seen far worse tonight than an invisible’s face.

  “Gytha,” he called out, setting off sharp echoes which shocked much of the other echo into silence. “Phelps?” And because he committed other unthinkable things: “Pace? Are you here?”

  Master Law, some voice said, somewhere in the dome. There was a flood of echoes, other voices whispering it, and one calling it out... “Master Law!”

  People came to him, some that he knew, some that he did not, and suddenly he panicked, because in the dark there was no color, and he had deceived them. They came, and near him Sbi stood, still hooded. Someone tried to take his hand, and he flinched and saved himself, looked into Carl Gytha’s tear-streaked face and flung his arms about him, which hurt too. He could not make himself heard if he tried: the whole dome rang with voices. Master Law! the shout went up, and people surged in until they pressed on him and Gytha and someone thrust at the crowd trying to clear him room.

  “Let me out,” he pleaded of Gytha, of Sbi, of anyone who could hear him. He shouted into the noise and could hardly hear himself. “Let me out!” The whole place was mad and Waden Jenks’s firelit face presided over it in rigid horror.

  Perhaps Gytha understood. A tide started in the press which surged toward the other side of the dome, which swept him along with Gytha’s arm to protect him ... or Sbi’s ... in the confusion he was no longer sure. The crush compressed his ribs, threatened his hands, and he would have fallen but for an arm which encircled his waist and pulled him.

  They broke forth into the air, a spill of the crowd like a wound bleeding forth onto the firelit paving. He had a momentary view of the distant, dying fires of the hedge, of ancient shrubbery gone skeletal and black as winter twigs.

  “Sir,” someone was saying to him, but he shook his head dazedly, finding even breathing hard. The crowd was pouring out after him, threatening to surround him here as well. Panic took him and he pushed at someone with his arm, saw Gytha’s anxious look directed to the outpouring crowd.

  And there in shadow, a taller, hooded figure, which unhooded itself and stood with naked head facing the crowd, which wavered, which slowed. Sbi turned and purposefully came and took him by the arm, drew him away in the moment’s shock, even away from Gytha, even from those he would have wanted to see. He yielded to Sbi’s encircling arm, walking farther up Main, slipping into what fitful shadows there were from the light of the burning, where Second Street offered them shelter.

  Herrin stopped there, sank down on the doorstep of a dark and open doorway, his arm locked across his aching side.

  “You are hurt?” Sbi asked him, touched his face with two gentle fingers, wiped sweat from him.

  “Drink?” Herrin asked, for shock threatened him and somewhere—he could not even remember where—he had lost the bundles of his belongings, everything. Sbi bent and touched his lips, transferred a mouthful of sweetish fluid to him, caressed his brow in drawing away and regarded him with great black eyes, pursed mouth bearing an expression of ahnit sorrow.

  “Sit,” Sbi wished him. “O Herrin, sit still.”

  “Waden,” he said. “He and Keye ... won’t know what to do. Can’t know what to do. I have to go to the Residency, Sbi, and talk to them ... if I can help there—I have to.”

  He tried to get up. Sbi did not help him at first, until he had almost made it and almost fallen, and then Sbi’s arm encircled him. A dark runner passed them, slowed, looked back and ran on, quick steps fading. Soon there were others, straggling after. Sbi’s arm tightened protectively. “I don’t trust this, Herrin.”

  “Come on. Come on. Let’s get back to Main, into the light.”

  “Your species frightens me.”

  “Come.” He walked, insisting, anxious himself until they were back on the main line of the city, with the smoldering hedge in front of them and the fire from the burning buildings still lighting the smoke which hung over the city like a reddened ceiling, casting light to all that was below it. It all looked wrong; and then he realized that he had never seen the buildings on Port Street without the façades lit. Only a few windows showed light on the Residency’s uppermost floor. He could not see the University clearly, but they had emergency power over there too, as they did at the port, and it was all dark, as far as he could see.

  He was afraid ... on all sides, afraid. More runners passed them, one screaming: he thought it screamed his name, and flinched. Back at the dome they were still shouting, still in uproar, and the echoes made it like the voice of some vast single beast.

  They left the concrete for the berm, which was powdered black with the burning of the hedge. Smoke obscured their vision. Fires still crackled, knee-high flames in a line down the remnant of the hedge on either side as they passed what was left of the archway and crossed onto Port Street, in front of the Residency.

  The whole west end was a shambles, the roof of the fifth level caved in, making rubble of that level and the next, where he had had his rooms ... and cracking walls beneath. The east wing, the source of the lights, stayed apparently intact, but the cracks ran there too.

  I would have died here, he thought dazedly, reckoning where his rooms were. He crossed the street with Sbi close beside him. No one prevented them, no one appeared on the street or on the outside steps. The doors gaped dark and open, showing only a little light from somewhere up the interior stairs when they walked in. The desk at the entry was deserted, dusted with fallen cement and there was rubble on the floor.

  “Waden?” he called aloud, and his voice echoed terrifyingly in the empty halls. Something moved, scurried, ran, stopped running in some new hiding. The skin prickled on his nape, and he felt the touch of Sbi’s hand at his arm as if Sbi too were insecure. He started up the stairs, careful in the shadows and the litter of rubble. Sbi imprudently put a hand on the wooden railing and it tottered and creaked.

  They came into the uppermost hall, where light showed on the right and wind from the ruined west wing came skirling in with a stinging breath of smoke. “Waden?” Herrin called again, fearing to surprise whatever guards Waden Jenks might have about him. He trod the hall carefully, toward that closed door where Waden’s office was.

  He called again. Something moved inside. He heard a voice, used his bandaged hand to press the latch and pushed it open.

  Keye met them. She had been sitting opposite the door in the long room, and rose, and her hands came up to shield her face. She cried out: Keye ... cried aloud, and Herrin reached out a hand to prevent her dissolution. “Keye,” he said, but she darted—for him, he thought for the instant—and then slid past him, past Sbi, for the dark hall, out, out of his presence and the sight of him. He looked back again to the room, dazed and of half a mind to go after Keye, to stop her if he could and reason with her if there was any reason. But there was movement in the doorway beyond the ell, and Waden was there, his face quickly taking on that look that Keye’s had had.

  “Waden,” Herrin said, before he could do what Keye had done. “What happened?”

  Waden only stared at him, in frozen stillness.

  “The Outsiders,” Herrin said. “Waden, you see me. You see I’m not alone; you always have, haven’t you? Wake up and see what’s going on, Waden. The city’s afire; your Outsiders have run mad. It was a lie. From the beginning, everything University set up—was a lie.”

  “Your reality,” Waden said from dry lips. “This is your reality, Herrin Law.”

  He blinked, caught up in that fancy
automatically, for one mind-wrenching instant that made all the walls shimmer, that rearranged everything and sent it inside out. “No,” he said, and reached his clumsy hand for Sbi, for a blue cloak, drawing the ahnit forward, into Waden’s full view. “Real as I am, Waden; real as you are, as the fire is real. You can’t cancel it.”

  “It’s yours,” Waden said bleakly. “I would not have imagined this. I failed to kill you, and you did this.”

  “You’re mad,” Herrin said. “I did this? I did nothing of it. It was your doing, from the first time you brought them here. What ship attacked us? Was it Singularity? Or your own allies?”

  “Whatever you imagine,” Waden said. It was a lost voice, a lost look in his eyes, which spilled tears. “I should have had them finish you; I needed you. That should have warned me where control was ... really. O Herrin, your revenge is excessive. Remake it. Revise it.”

  It was an ugly thing to see, a hurtful thing. He closed his eyes to it and looked again, saw Waden still standing there, hands open, face vulnerable. “I wish I could, Waden. But you see—” He sought, half humorous, some logic to devastate logic, to break through to Waden Jenks. “—I let it go. The reality I imagined was a reality that would become universal, that would exist on its own in time and space ... that I myself could no longer interrupt, that’s what I imagined. And now the world has to take its course under those terms. Sbi exists. We’ll all see each other. We’ll listen to the ahnit and see them. We’ll not do things the way they were; we’ll not teach dialectic to shut down minds; we’ll not be what we were. And I can’t stop it. That’s what I imagined.”

  Waden’s eyes were terrible. Not vacant but following that speculation, gazing into possibilities. “What do you imagine that I’ll do?”