"Who are you?" I asked weakly.
"My name is Rebecca," she said with a smile. "And you are Gregory Donovan."
"I thought I left my ID in my bubble."
"You did."
"Then you opened it," I said, frowning. "It's only supposed to open to my voice command."
"I haven't opened it," she said. "Now try to rest."
I was about to argue with her, for she was obviously lying, but suddenly all my energy vanished and I lost consciousness again.
****
It was very late afternoon when I awoke the next time. Rebecca was sitting on the ground, staring at me. I got to take another look at her, and decided that she was more than pretty—she was gorgeous. I couldn't find a single feature I'd improve.
She was dressed in an immaculate white blouse and khaki slacks that fit her like a glove, which seemed as unlikely as being cared for by a beautiful Terran-speaking girl on a planet that supposedly had no sentient life forms.
"Welcome back," she said. "How do you feel?"
"Rested," I said. "What kind of shape am I in?"
"Your arm is badly infected, your leg is broken in three places, and you have some serious wounds around your face and neck."
"What the hell happened?" I asked.
"You were attacked by a . . . the closest I can translate it into Terran would be a Nightstalker. It's the largest carnivore on Nikita."
"It can't be," I said. "Something bigger drove it off."
"Trust me, Gregory," said Rebecca. "The Nightstalker is Nikita's largest carnivore."
I was too weak to argue, and it didn't make any difference anyway. Something had driven the Nightstalker off, and I didn't much care if it was a bigger carnivore or an enraged microbe.
"How long have you been here, Rebecca?" I asked.
"With you?" she said. "Since last night."
"No, I mean on Nikita."
"All my life."
I frowned. "My computer didn't say anything about a human colony here."
"There isn't one."
"You mean you were stranded here as a child?" I asked. "Were your parents with you?"
"My parents lived here," she said.
"Are they still alive?" I said. "I've got a ship picking me up in nine days . . ."
"No, they aren't alive."
"I'm sorry. Well, at least the ship can take you and me off the planet."
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
I thought about it for a moment. "Not really. I'd like something to drink, though."
"All right," she said. "The river's just a quarter mile away. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"They say the water's pretty awful. I've got water and some electrolyte mixtures in my bubble."
"If you prefer," she said.
"See?" I said accusingly. "I knew you'd been in my bubble."
"I told you: I haven't entered it."
"If you're telling the truth, then you won't be able to get into it now. It's programmed only to respond to my voice pattern uttering the proper code words."
"I will get them and be right back," she said.
And sure enough, she was back just a minute or two later carrying three containers. I chose the one that would give me the quickest energy boost and tried not to think about how she got the bubble to let her in.
"I think you should eat in another hour, Gregory," she said. "You need strength to fight off the infection. I'll go through your supplies in a few minutes and see what you have." She flashed me a smile. "I'm a very good cook. Maybe I can figure out how to combine your H-rations to make them taste like duck in orange sauce."
"Why did you say that?" I asked.
"It's your favorite, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," I replied. "How did you know?"
"You just look like a duck in orange sauce man to me."
"What the hell is going on here?" I demanded. "You know my name, you know my favorite food, you can get a voice-coded bubble to open to you, you know how to splint a leg and patch me up, and you speak without an accent."
"Why are you complaining?" she asked. "Would you rather I had left you broken and bleeding on the ground? Did you want me to bring you water that you find all-but-undrinkable? Should I find H-rations that you hate?"
"No, of course not," I said. "But you're not answering my questions."
"Yes, I am."
"Here's another," I said. "What the hell are you doing here in the first place? It's a big planet. How did you happen to find me just in time to save my life?"
"Serendipity," said Rebecca.
"Serendipity, hell," I said. "And while I'm asking questions, what saved me last night?"
"I did."
"You patched me up," I said. "What saved me? What drove the Nightstalker off?"
"Is it important?" asked Rebecca. "You're alive. That's what matters."
"It's important to me," I said. "I don't like being lied to."
"I haven't lied to you, Gregory," she said. "Now be quiet and let me check the wounds on your arm and neck."
She walked over and knelt down next to me. There was a sweet smell about her, almost a perfume, that seemed to suit her exactly. She examined the gashes on my neck, and although they were badly swollen and clearly infected, her cool, sure fingers didn't hurt at all.
"It's still seeping," she said, getting to her feet. "I've treated your dressings with native herbs and leaves that promote healing. I'll change them after dinner."
"What kind of dressing are you using, and where did you get it out here in the middle of nowhere?"
She pointed to a satchel a few feet away. "I'm always prepared."
A wave of dizziness spread over me, and I spent the next couple of minutes trying not to fall over on my side. I don't remember what happened next, but when my head cleared she was sitting next to me, steadying me with her body. It felt good, and I pretended I was still dizzy so she wouldn't move away. I think she knew it, but she stayed there anyway.
"How long before I can walk?" I asked at last.
"I'll make you some crutches in three or four days," she said. "After all, you'll need some practice if you're to get to your contact point in time for the ship that's picking you up."
"So I'm stuck here for three days, maybe four," I said unhappily.
"I'm sorry," she said sympathetically. "I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible, but you're very weak and your temperature is dangerously high. I'm afraid you're not going to be able to see much of the planet."
"What makes you think I'm here to explore Nikita?" I asked sharply.
"Why else would you have come?" replied Rebecca. "I'll help you into your bubble tonight. You'll have to stay there; you're too weak to move any farther than that."
"I know," I admitted with a sigh. "It's going to be a boring few days. I wish to hell I'd brought some disks to read."
"We can discuss our favorite books," she offered. "It will make the time pass more pleasantly."
I don't know why I was surprised that she read—I mean, hell, everybody reads—but I was. "Who are your favorites?" I asked.
"Cisco, Jablonski, and Hedburg."
"You're kidding!" I exclaimed. "Those are my favorites too! At least we'll have something to talk about after dinner."
And we did. We talked for hours, and not just about books either. I'd never felt so comfortable with anyone in my life. We talked about hopes and dreams, about regrets, about everything. It was amazing: she seemed to mirror my every thought, my every secret longing. And when we'd fall silent, it wasn't an uncomfortable silence, the kind you feel you have to speak into; I was just as happy to look at her as listen to her. She'd grown up on an alien world thousands of light years from Earth, and I knew almost nothing about her: where she lived, what she had done with her life prior to saving mine, even her last name—and yet my last waking thought was that I was already a little bit in love with her.
I don't know how long I slept. I woke up when I felt Rebecca applying some salve to
the gashes on my cheeks and neck.
"Don't move," she said gently. "I'll be done in another minute."
I held still until she was through, then opened my eyes and realized that we were inside my bubble.
"I'm surprised you could drag me in here without help," I said. "I must really have been out of it, not to wake up while you were moving me."
"I'm stronger than I look," she said with a smile.
"Good," I said. "Give me a hand up, and let me hobble out into the fresh air."
She began reaching out for me, then froze.
"What's the matter?"
"I'll be back in ten minutes," she said. "Don't try to stand without me; you could damage your splint."
"What's the matter?" I asked. "Are you all right?"
But she had already run off into the nearby stand of trees, and I lost sight of her.
It was puzzling. The only logical explanation was that she'd eaten something rotten and she was going off to be sick, but I didn't buy it. She'd run too gracefully, and she'd shown no discomfort, not the least little bit, prior to leaving.
I decided to try getting up on my own despite her orders. It was a disaster. The way my leg was splinted I simply couldn't do it. As I tried to position it, I realized that the bandages were soaked and foul-smelling. I rubbed a finger against them, then held it up. It wasn't blood, just something yellow-greenish. I didn't know whether that was a good sign or a bad one.
That's some carnivore, that Nightstalker, I thought. I wondered why it hadn't taken over the planet. Then I realized that except for Rebecca, who wasn't native to Nikita, I hadn't seen anything much larger than a raccoon or a possum, so maybe it had taken over the planet. It seemed a reasonable conclusion, but I'd served on just enough alien planets to know that reasonable and right often had very little to do with each other.
Then Rebecca was back, as immaculate as ever. She took one look at my leg and said, "I told you not to try standing up without me."
"Something's wrong with it," I said. "It smells bad, and it's wet."
"I know," she said. "I'll fix it. Trust me, Gregory."
I looked into her face and found, to my surprise, that I did trust her. I was alone and possibly dying a zillion miles from home, being tended with leaves and herbs by a girl I'd known for only a few days, and I trusted her. I had half a notion that if she told me to walk off a cliff I'd have done it.
"While we're discussing health," I said, "how's yours?"
"I'm fine, Gregory," she said. "But I'm flattered to know you were worried about me."
"Of course I was," I said. "You're the person who's keeping me alive."
"That's not why you were worried," she said.
"No," I admitted, "it's not."
There was a momentary silence.
"Well, are you ready to hobble outside?" she asked. "I'll help you to that tree. You can prop yourself up against it when you sit, and the branches and leaves will shade you from the sun. It can get very warm here at midday."
"I'm ready," I said.
She took my right hand in both of hers and pulled. It hurt like hell for a minute, but then I was on my feet.
"Lean on my shoulder," she said as she helped me turn toward the bubble's entrance.
I half-hopped, half-hobbled through it. The tree was some forty feet away. I'd gone about half that distance when my good foot went into some kind of rodent hole, and I started falling. I reached out, grabbing for her blouse, and then the strangest thing happened—instead of grabbing cloth, my fingers slid down her naked skin. I could see the blouse, but it wasn't there. She pivoted, trying to catch me, and my hand came into contact with her bare breast, slid over her nipple, down a naked hip and thigh, and then I hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud! The pain was excruciating.
Rebecca was beside me in an instant, positioning my leg, putting her hands under my head, doing what she could to comfort me. It took a good five minutes for the burning in my leg and arm to subside, but eventually it did, at least enough for me to consider what had happened.
I reached out to her shoulder, felt the cloth of her blouse, and ran my hand down the side of her body. The texture of the cloth changed when I got to her slacks, but there was no naked flesh—yet I knew I hadn't hallucinated it. You hallucinate after you're in agony, like now, not before.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I asked.
"You fell."
"Don't play dumb with me," I said. "It's unbecoming in someone as smart and lovely. Just tell me what's happening."
"Try to rest," she said. "We'll talk later."
"You said yesterday that you wouldn't lie to me. Did you mean it?"
"I will never lie to you, Gregory."
I stared at her perfect face for a long minute. "Are you human?" I asked at last.
"For the moment."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I am what I need to be," she said. "What you need me to be."
"That's no answer."
"I am telling you that right now I am human, that I am everything you need. Isn't that enough?"
"Are you a shape-changer?" I asked.
"No, Gregory, I am not."
"Then how can you look like this?"
"This is what you want to see," she said.
"What if I want to see you are you really are?" I persisted.
"But you don't," she said. "This"—she indicated herself—"is what you want to see."
"What makes you think so?"
"Gregory, Gregory," she said with a sigh, "do you think I created this face and this body out of my imagination? I found it in your mind."
"Bullshit," I said. "I never met anyone who looked like you."
A smile. "But you wish you had." And a pause. "And if you had, you were sure she would be called Rebecca. I am not only everything you need, but everything you want."
"Everything?" I asked dubiously.
"Everything."
"Can we . . . uh . . . ?"
"When you slipped you caught me off-guard," she answered. "Didn't I feel like the woman you want me to be?"
"Let me get this straight. Your clothes are as much of an illusion as you are?"
"The clothes are an illusion," she said, and suddenly they vanished and she was standing, naked and perfect, before me. "I am real."
"You're a real something," I said. "But you're not a real woman."
"At this moment I am as real as any woman you have ever known."
"Let me think for a minute," I said. I stared at her while I tried to think. Then I realized that I was thinking all the wrong things, and I lowered my gaze to the ground. "That thing that drove the Nightstalker away," I said. "It was you, wasn't it?"
"It was what you needed at that instant," she answered.
"And whatever pulls the leaves down from the treetops—a snake, a bird, an animal, whatever—that's you too?"
"You need a mixture of the leaves and the herbs to combat your infection."
"Are you trying to say that you were put here solely to serve my needs?" I demanded. "I didn't think God was that generous."
"No, Gregory," said Rebecca. "I am saying that it is my nature, even my compulsion, to nurture those who are in need of nurturing."
"How did you know I needed it, or that I was even on the planet?"
"There are many ways of sending a distress signal, some of them far more powerful than you can imagine."
"Are you saying that if someone is suffering, say, five miles away, you'd know it?"
"Yes."
"More that five miles?" I continued. She simply stared at me. "Fifty miles? A hundred? The whole damned planet?"
She looked into my eyes, her face suddenly so sad that I totally forgot about the rest of her. "It's not limited to just the planet, Gregory."
"When you ran off for a few minutes, were you saving some other man?"
"You are the only man on the planet," she replied.
"Well, then?"
"You weren't gone that long," I said. "Are you saying that an injured wild animal let a strange woman approach it while it was in pain, because I find that very difficult to believe."
"I did not approach it as a woman."
I stared at her for a long moment. I think I half-expected her to morph into some kind of alien monster, but she just looked as beautiful as ever. I visually searched her naked body for flaws—make that errors—some indication that she wasn't human, but I couldn't find any.
"I've got to think about all this," I said at last.
"Would you like me to leave?"
"No."
"Would it be less distracting if I recreated the illusion of clothing?"
"Yes," I said. Then "No." Then "I don't know."
"They always find out," she said. "But usually not this quickly."
"Are you the only one of . . . of whatever it is that you are?"
"No," she replied. "But we were never a numerous race, and I am one of the very few who remains on Nikita."
"What happened to the others?"
"They went where they were needed. Some came back; most went from one distress signal to another."
"We haven't had a ship here in six years," I said. "How did they leave the planet?"
"There are many races in the galaxy, Gregory. Humans aren't the only ones to land here."
"How many men have you saved?"
"A few."
"And Patrukans?"
"Patrukans too."
I shrugged. "Why the hell not? I suppose we're all equally alien to you."
"You are not alien," she said. "I assure you that at this moment I am every bit as human as the Rebecca of your dreams. In fact, I am the Rebecca of your dreams." She flashed me a smile. "I even want to do what that Rebecca wants to do."
"Is it possible?" I asked curiously.
"Not while you have a broken leg," she answered, "but yes, it's not only possible, but natural." I must have looked doubtful, because she added, "It would feel exactly the way you hope it would feel."
"You'd better bring the clothes back before I do something really stupid that'll mess up my arm and leg even worse," I said.
And instantly she was clothed again.
"Better?" she asked.
"Safer, anyway," I said.
Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006 Page 3