Alien Child

by Pamela Sargent

  “I wish we could stay here for a while,” she said, “but we should go back to our guardians. They’re probably worrying about us by now if they’re awake. Without their authorizations, they can’t even call us over the screens.”

  “You’re right. But don’t give up your authorization. We know their secret now, and we ought to be able to meet when we like. Tell me you’ll meet me again soon.”

  “Of course I will.” She averted her eyes as they stood up. Sven lingered near his chair for a moment, as if reluctant to leave, then walked with her toward the lift.

  The two cats were prowling the lobby. They bounded toward Nita and Sven as they left the lift. The boy picked up Tanj; Nita followed him with her cat toward the door that led into the garden. Another door, near the exit, was marked SECURITY. She had seen that room on diagrams but had never been told what it contained; the word seemed oddly ominous now as she thought of what Sven had told her about their people.

  Nita set Dusky down near a bush. “I’ll talk to you later over the screen,” Sven said. “Remember—don’t give up your authorization.”

  “I won’t. I’ll tell Llipel it’s our time for togetherness. She’ll have to understand that.”

  The orange cat squirmed in the boy’s arms. Sven began to walk toward the west wing, then looked back. “If they kept this a secret, they may have other secrets, too. I’m beginning to wonder how much they might have kept from us.”

  She nodded, not wanting to think of that now.

  7

  Llipel was tugging at the fur around her mouth as she paced in the hall near the cafeteria. She stiffened when Nita approached her.

  “You are here,” Llipel said. She lowered her arms and stopped pacing. “I am most curious.”

  “Did you talk to Llare?”

  “That was my first action. The screen allowed me to speak to Llare. We were told where you were.” Llipel was slurring her words a bit more than usual.

  “I had to go,” Nita said. “Sven spoke to me over the screen and asked me to meet him in the tower. You knew about him, didn’t you? You were authorized—you had to know.”

  “I knew.”

  “He and I are both authorized now, and we’re going to stay that way, but we brought back the authorizations we took from you and Llare.”

  Llipel tilted her head. Nita pulled one of the chains over her head, then moved toward her guardian, holding out the authorization. Llipel suddenly raised her arms and held her hands in front of her chest, claws out.

  She’s frightened, Nita thought, and then: She’s scared of me now. The defensive gesture dismayed her.

  “What has taken place with the boy?” Llipel asked.

  “I was in the garden with Dusky, and then a door in the west wing opened and she ran inside. I went after her, and then the door closed, so I came back here and tried to call Llare over the screen. That’s when I saw Sven’s image. He asked me to meet him in the tower.”

  “So you went there alone.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken your authorization, but I had to see him. I didn’t want to wake you, and I was afraid you wouldn’t let me go.”

  “And what came after that?”

  “We talked,” Nita said. “He told me how he learned about me and what he’s found out in the library. We want to be friends, Llipel. It must be a time of togetherness for us now.”

  Llipel retracted her claws. Nita stepped toward her and handed her the chain. Llipel hung it around her neck while watching Nita warily. “I knew that a time would come for you to know of Sven. I did not think—”

  “But why didn’t you tell me before? Why did you keep it a secret?”

  Llipel leaned against the wall. “I should not have gone to the cold room. I could not say to you that Llare had revived the boy only a short time before I went there. Llare was frightened and did not tell me of that error until I had made the same mistake with you. Our time of separateness was upon us then, and we did not often speak. It took much for Llare to tell me of the deed, and much for me to tell Llare of what I had done.” Llipel adjusted the chain. “I could tell you of my own mistake, but not Llare’s, not as long as Llare would not allow me to tell of it. I promised— no. I do not think your people have a word for it. It is a kind of pledge, but more than that. It is saying one will not speak of a thing and then entering a time of silence about it.”

  How many other secrets had Llipel promised to keep? Nita walked past her guardian and entered the cafeteria. The fruit juice, bread, and cheese she had taken from a slot earlier still sat on the table near the window where she had left them. She walked toward the table, picked up the food, and dumped it into the recycler’s round opening; she had lost her appetite.

  Llipel had followed her into the room. Nita sank into a chair; her guardian sat down on the floor near her. “Is that the only reason you didn’t tell me,” Nita said, “that you made a kind of promise to Llare that you wouldn’t say anything about Sven?”

  “That came later, what you call a promise. We brought you out to care for you, but our own time of separateness had come. Llare took you both for a time, and then I would bring you here, but there was much trouble in caring for one, and more with two. We learned it would be easier if each of us cared for one of you.”

  Nita could understand that; the screens had told her of how long her kind remained helpless and dependent when young. “But when we were older,” she said, “when we could do some things for ourselves—couldn’t you have told us then?”

  “The screens said that young ones of your kind might be brought together for play and learning. It was strange to hear that, for I felt a need for my separateness and a time to hear only my own thoughts. But you were not of my kind, so I did not know your needs. When you came to say words, to crawl and stand and walk a little, Llare would leave the boy with me for a time, or I would take you to Llare. Sometimes you played, and other days you stayed apart, but then a day came when the boy struck you and hurt you before I could stop it. I feared that you were harmed.”

  Nita thought of what Sven had told her. Did their violent time come upon them so soon, even before they were fully grown?

  “I told Llare of what Sven had done,” Llipel continued. “We agreed that it was not your time of togetherness, whatever the mind said. We knew also that—” She fell silent for a moment. “We did not want either of you harmed by the other. It was best to keep you apart after that.”

  “Sven told me what he learned about our people.” Her throat tightened. “I suppose you already know what he’s found out. He told me how they fought, how one group would kill another, about their weapons.”

  “We knew,” Llipel responded. “We hoped that this time would not come for you, because the mind said that your kind had times without fighting. But we soon saw our mistake. We kept you apart, and then learned that you were in a time of forgetfulness—you had no memory of your togetherness.”

  “That isn’t quite true,” Nita said. “I think I did recall something, but I used to think I had only imagined it. I had a faint memory of another like me.”

  “Llare and I agreed that you would not know of each other until we saw what changes came to you later. We entered our time of silence.” She looked up at Nita solemnly. “We wanted to be sure a time of not-fighting was near before you learned of each other.”

  Was Llipel being completely honest with her now? Maybe she had intended to keep the secret for good, and was only saying this because Nita now knew about Sven. “You knew I longed for a friend,” she said. “Didn’t that tell you that it might be time for me to have one?”

  Llipel whistled softly, then mewed a protest. “That feeling passed from you—it was not always in you, and your body did not fail from that longing. You seemed content with the companionship of the cat. That told me it was not yet your time of togetherness.”

  Nita said, “That time has come.”

  “It seems so, if you are moved to take my authorization from me and run to t
hat boy.” Llipel waved an arm. “I sensed that this time was near. Llare told me of how restless Sven was growing, of how often he searched the library’s records. We would have told you of each other before long.” She gazed at Nita steadily with her black eyes. “Now you have found each other, and I fear for you.”

  “There’s nothing to fear.” Nita hoped that was true. “We want to be friends—we won’t harm each other. We may be the only ones of our kind left—we have to be friends.”

  Llipel did not reply.

  8

  Nita had viewed the library through a screen before going there, but the room was smaller than she had expected. Tables, couches, and chairs were grouped in the center of the room, while slots that resembled those in the cafeteria covered the walls.

  Sven was expecting her; he looked up as she walked toward him. He was sitting on a couch and held a flat reading screen on his lap. Llare was seated on the floor near him, but before Nita could speak, Sven’s guardian stood up, murmured a greeting, then glided from the room.

  “Llare could have stayed,” Nita said. Llare’s presence might have eased the awkwardness she now felt.

  “It’s all right. He thought we might want to be by ourselves. He usually goes out to the courtyard in the afternoon, so maybe we can talk to him then.” He pointed toward a desk to her left on which a small console sat. “That’s the catalogue. I’ll show you how it works. You ask it for records on a subject, and if it isn’t sure what you want, it’ll ask you some questions until it finds out. Then it searches the records and displays them on a screen. You don’t really have to come here to use the library, now that you’ve got that.” He gestured at the authorization around her neck. “But I like coming here to read, anyway.”

  “I should have brought a reading screen with me,” she said. “I didn’t think—”

  “Turn around. See those thin slots on either side of the door? Just press a button under one of them.”

  She went toward the door and pushed a button; the slot extruded a flat screen. She pulled it out, walked back to the boy, and sat down on the couch across from him.

  Sven looked different. His thick light-brown hair was now curled around his ears and was shorter and more even around his face and neck. She wished that she had trimmed her own hair, which had grown past her shoulders; she had never worried about how she looked before. He wore a blue coverall, but this one fit him more snugly than the one he had worn in the tower. She suddenly wished that she had something to wear besides blue coveralls and white coats; the images on the screen often appeared in a variety of garments.

  Sven’s face reddened; she realized that she was staring at him. “Look directly at a person when you meet,” Beate had told her, “but don’t stare in a way that might make that person uncomfortable.” Nita was having a hard time grasping the distinction. Beate and Ismail had also demonstrated such gestures as shaking hands and taking a person lightly by the arms before planting a kiss on one cheek, both of which had apparently been customary greetings.

  “Well, what do you want to look at first?” he asked.

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “How much reading have you done?”

  “I’ve read some things about the Institute’s work, and writings about plants and animals. I know some astronomy and a little about medicine. I wasn’t allowed to read a lot of things.”

  “It’ll be hard at first,” he said, “depending on what you pick. You’ll see unfamiliar words, but the reading gets easier the more you do of it.”

  “You never told me what Llare said when you came back from the tower.”

  “He said he would have told me about you soon, but he seemed interested in how I discovered it for myself. I kept thinking he’d scold me, but he didn’t. I wish I could believe him. I wonder if he would have said anything if I hadn’t found it out.”

  She understood what he meant; knowing about Sven seemed to increase the barriers between her and her own guardian. “I used to wonder,” she said, “how Llipel could stay with me when she had to be apart from Llare. She thought it was because I wasn’t one of her kind, that she didn’t have the same feeling with me, the same need to stay apart.”

  “Llare told me that, too. He said the feeling was very strong, almost like a command—that it wasn’t time to be with Llipel, that he had to look at everything through his own eyes and not hers. That’s how he described it.”

  “Llipel said it was like having to hear everything through her own ears.”

  “And yet they could still speak over the screens,” Sven said. “Maybe that was mostly about us, maybe that’s why they talked then. They can still talk to each other, even during separateness.” He frowned. “That’s probably more than you can say for our kind. When they had wars, all they must have thought about was killing and winning. They even thought about it sometimes during their times for peace.”

  “Please. You don’t have to think of that now.”

  Sven put his screen aside. “When I first found out about our people, when I realized what they were like, I told myself I was glad I was alone, that there weren’t any others like me. Then I found out about you, and all these feelings came that frightened me. I was happy, but I was angry with Llare for never telling me—I don’t think I was ever so angry before. I couldn’t say anything to him, and then I wondered if he was trying to protect us. Now I worry that I might really hurt you someday. I hurt you once—Llare told me about that.”

  “But you didn’t know any better.”

  “Does that make it all right?” He cleared his throat. “We might hurt Llare and Llipel. Have you thought of that? Maybe when our violent time comes, we’ll go after them.”

  Nita tried to smile. “That wouldn’t be easy. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of their claws.” She studied the boy, trying not to stare at him this time. Somehow she could not imagine him being deliberately cruel, whatever their people had been like.

  Sven shifted on his couch. “You know, I’ve never seen Llare use his claws for anything except grooming himself and me, or poking at something, or combing my cat when Tanj lets him, which isn’t often. I don’t think they know anything about fighting.” He shook his head. “There’s another thing. Now that we’ve met, and we’re older, they might leave. They have a ship, and this isn’t their world. It might be like their time of separateness—they might feel that the time’s come to leave.”

  Nita was silent. What purpose would there be to her life then? Llipel had taken pleasure in her companionship and in guiding her. Nita’s existence might be the result of her guardian’s mistake, but Llipel had clearly taken a bit of joy in raising her. Each was separated from others of her own kind, but their companionship had eased that loss a little. She could know that her existence had given Llipel some solace.

  But what would happen if Llipel and Llare left the Institute? She and Sven would have no purpose. They would learn what they could from the library, knowledge that had no goal except passing the time until death. They might leave this place, but would find no other people. They might have closeness that would end in a fight. They could go to the cold place and revive other companions, but if others like them lived, they might only bring more death to this world.

  “Maybe we’re the ones who’ll have to leave the Institute,” she said. “I’d do that before I’d hurt Llipel, whatever secrets she’s kept.” Her own impatience and growing distrust might push her into acting against her guardian; perhaps suspicion and fear were the first signs of her kind’s violent time.

  Sven stood up. “Come on. I should show you how the catalogue works.”

  She shook her head. “I want to see some of what you found—about the wars and what our people did. You can show it to me now.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

  “If I see the worst about our people and get it over with, I’ll be prepared for anything else. Maybe it’s better to see it instead of imagining all kinds of things.”

&n
bsp; “If that’s what you want.” He picked up his screen and sat down next to her.

  Sven was murmuring to his screen, speaking of the records he wished to show. The first images revealed winged objects soaring over barren land and striking targets; others showed beams shooting out from globes that seemed to be orbiting Earth. A voice spoke of devices that could irradiate a city and kill its inhabitants, while leaving most of the buildings unmarked; another spoke of chemicals that poisoned land and water, and of microbes that could spread disease. Chemical symbols and images of microbes flickered on the screen. She had not imagined that there were so many ways to kill.

  Images of large vehicles with treads were now moving across her screen, followed by helmeted figures carrying heavy rods. “That’s how wars seemed to start,” Sven said. “They’d use their smaller weapons first, ones that could kill only a few people or bring down a few aircraft. They’d destroy part of a city with bombs or try to get control of the other side’s important places. They fought on the water, too, in ships that floated and ones that could go under the water.” She saw winged vessels rise from what looked like a floating platform.

  They had sent death into the air, over land, into Earth’s oceans. She shuddered; they had surrounded themselves with death. “Didn’t they see what they were doing?” she said faintly. “Why couldn’t they stop?”

  “They would, after a while, and then they’d fight some more. When they couldn’t kill enough people with smaller weapons, they’d use more destructive ones. Sometimes they’d get scared of what they were doing, and sometimes they didn’t seem to care after a while. It must have been like a game to some of them, the ones who weren’t there to see people actually die. They’d just see diagrams on a screen, or people who might as well have been just images. Maybe that’s how their violent time made them see others.”