Jaydium

by Deborah J. Ross

  Brianna pushed her way into the common room, skirting the shallow pool. She whirled around in a dancer’s graceful pirouette, and placed both fists on her hips.

  Eril groaned inwardly. Here it comes. She’s been building up to it the whole way back.

  “I can see you simply don’t understand the enormity of what you’ve done, either of you. Here I am, about to make a breakthrough in analyzing the gastropoidal architecture system and the role of hierarchically determined therine secretion patterns in clan dominance — oh, don’t look at me as if that’s so much nonsense! You understand my meaning. You know it’s the first step in understanding this culture so that we could be sure we weren’t introducing a fatal innovation — and you endanger everything we’re working for with this criminally irresponsible escapade! You should have prepared suitable safeguards, in a scientifically acceptable fashion, not to mention waiting until we had a better idea of the implication of the impact of our technology upon the current situation! Why in untranslatable didn’t you ask my advice first?”

  Eril’s first impulse was to laugh in Brianna’s face. No one but his sister Avery could rant in such an operatic mode, and he thought Brianna would fare well in the comparison. But one look at Kithri’s face convinced him that she, for one, was taking Brianna seriously.

  “Calm down, Bri,” he said as diplomatically as he could. “There’s nothing to be gained by blaming one another. If there was a mistake, it was my mistake, not Kithri’s.”

  “I don’t blame her and I am quite calm already.” Brianna began gathering the sheets of seaweed-film into meticulous piles, as if to underscore her rationality. “After all, she’s had no more education than a herd-beast. Not a shred of decent methodological training. It isn’t her fault — ”

  Kithri had started toward her own cubicle, but now she froze and turned slowly back. Her face flooded with color and her old nose break stood out as a chalky brand. She strode to the table and swept the entire contents — all of Brianna’s notes, styluses, and specimens — to the floor. Still without a word, she shoved one fist a hairsbreadth from Brianna’s nose and made an emphatic gesture. Then she spun around and marched out the door.

  Brianna looked at Eril, her eyes innocently wide. “What — what did she — ”

  “Never mind.” Eril bent to pick up a pile of films. “You don’t want to know what that meant.”

  “It’s just as well the translator doesn’t function for gestures,” Brianna said as she knelt to gather up the rest of her materials. “Then we’d all have more to regret.”

  There’s nothing to do now but wait and hope that reviving Raerquel is as simple as Bhevon made it sound,

  Eril thought as he dumped his armful of films on the nearest bench. “You’ll be hours sorting all this out.”

  “That’s not a problem. If it’s one thing I’ve learned as a scientist, it’s to label everything properly.”

  “I see that. You’re very good at it.” He paused. “Brianna, there are a few things we need to talk about.”

  “I agree. You’ve been so busy, we haven’t had time to discuss our progress...or anything else.” She smiled and took a few steps toward her cubicle. “Come on, see what I’ve done.”

  Somehow she’d found a curtain for privacy, now pulled back along a slender crystal rod. A comforter and overstuffed pillows covered her cot. The once-smooth walls had been replaced by an elaborate abstract frieze.

  He stopped and stared. “Where did you get this stuff?”

  “Not all of us have been cooped up in the laboratory for days at a time. I’ve been working this culture, and also learning how to extract a few favors in the process.” She sat on the bed. “What are you waiting out there for? I thought you wanted to talk.”

  The bed surface yielded just the right amount under Eril’s weight. The conversation was definitely going in the wrong direction. He searched his memory for the tactics that had worked with his sister, something outrageous enough to keep her off balance and never sure if he was really joking. But Brianna was not Avery and he had to work with her, depend on her. He cleared his throat.

  “Look,” he said, “you didn’t sign up to be part of a team and neither did I. But we are one. We have to be. Maybe everything we’re trying to do is hopeless. Maybe the duolinkage was impossible to begin with. Or maybe the war will start before we can get anywhere with it — space knows the situation hasn’t gotten any better these last few days. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure — Kithri’s laying her life, not to mention her sanity, on the line for us. And you — you’re treating her like shit.”

  While he spoke, Brianna sat very straight, hardly moving except for curling her fingers in the silky covering of a pillow and pulling it on her lap. The color drained from her cheeks, her lips, even her eyes.

  “You’re on her side — ”

  “There are no sides here,” he said grimly. “And if Kithri had saved my skin with those pirates the way she did yours, I’d be a damned sight less judgmental about her.”

  In the shocked moment that followed, Brianna hung her head and began crying, at first soundlessly, then with throttled, almost hiccoughing sobs. Tears rolled down her face and splotched the pillow.

  Eril watched her, still too angry to feel much sympathy for her. Whatever she was up to with her emotional outburst, he wasn’t going to play into it. Then he remembered that this was the woman who dug herself out of a rock slide with her bare hands, who dealt calmly and effectively with the three of them when they’d appeared so mysteriously. Who went running into the pirates’ arms to save his skin.

  “It’s the stress,” he said awkwardly. “It’s affecting all of us.”

  “No, you’re right, I have acted judgmental toward Kithri,” Brianna said, visibly struggling to control herself. “Judgmental and unfair. It’s always been so easy for me, I’ve never had much sympathy for other people’s shortcomings. I had everything I ever wanted — money, academic advancement, work I loved. I thought I deserved it, and if anyone else had difficulties, they must be his own fault. I must have been insufferabe.”

  She hugged the pillow to her chest. “And then when things did go wrong — the slide, the pirates — and Kithri refusing to go along with anything I proposed. She made me so angry — I felt certain her impulsiveness would result in catastrophe. I never stopped to think the problem might be my own expectations. Attitudes, expressions of speech — they get ingrained, like reflexes, even when you don’t mean them. When things happen so fast, you keep on behaving the way you always have. Without thinking. I guess I’m trying to apologize. I’m not very good at it.”

  “It’s Kithri you should apologize to.”

  “I know, but I’m not sure I can. This way — not matter what happens — I’ll have said it to somebody.”

  She sounded so bleak, so desolate that Eril had to look away. Finally he said, in a voice that he wished wasn’t his, “The rest of the day’s worthless. I’m going to find Lennart and fill him in, maybe catch up with Kithri and re-civilize her. Hopefully, we’ll have news about Raerquel’s condition soon.”

  Brianna watched him as he left her cubicle and then slowly drew her door curtain closed.

  Chapter 31

  Eril jerked awake and scrambled to his feet, ready to suit up and sprint for the launching port. His needle jet would be tuned to go, Hank already sliding into the co-pilot’s seat. Heart pounding, he paused and looked around, his eyes searching the dimness. He could see only the blank walls of his own narrow cubicle, not barracks teeming with awakening pilots. No alarms shrilled through his ears. All he could hear were the normal sounds made by three sleeping people. From Lennart’s cubicle came gentle rhythmic snoring. Whatever had woken him must have been a dream, nothing more.

  Eril lay back and tried to relax. Late in the war he’d snatched hours and minutes of sleep whenever he could. He’d learned to simply not think about the problems he couldn’t do anything about. Raerquel’s condition would wait until the morning
— the matter was entirely out of his hands. What had happened with Brianna was a different matter. He went over the conversation in his mind, wondering if there was anything else he could have said or done. Since then, Brianna had made no overtures toward Kithri, although she was no longer openly hostile. Not that Kithri cared what Brianna thought of her.

  Kithri...

  The thought came to him how alike they were, as if they each had their own poisoned memories. He thought of Kithri watching her father die by inches and of all his own years of growing up, desperately hoping there had been some mistake and his father had been found, that any day he’d walk through the door...and the moment on his tenth birthday when he realized, finally and absolutely, that would never happen.

  Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about those things, either.

  In the end, Eril resorted to working out textbook navigational problems in his head until he drifted off to sleep.

  o0o

  The next morning, no word had yet come of Raerquel’s condition. Brianna spread her notes over a section of floor, sorting and indexing. She said there was no point in sitting around worrying when there was work to be done. Kithri began pacing from her cubicle to the common room, biting her fingernails. Eril decided the situation was ripe for another confrontation between the two of them. He’d better get some action organized fast.

  “Bri, you know the city best,” he said. “You and Lennart check Raerquel’s laboratory, the Clan courtyards, anywhere and anyone who might be able to tell you what’s going on. Kithri and I will go back to the lab and re-check the equipment. Maybe we can find something we overlooked yesterday. We’ll meet you back here, if one of you doesn’t find us first.”

  He was a little surprised when the others did as he suggested without protest. Even Kithri went along with him.

  “Do you think we’ll find anything, I mean some mistake that caused — what happened yesterday?” she asked as they passed the mazework of free-standing walls.

  Eril shook his head. “If we had any idea there was something wrong, we wouldn’t have gone ahead. Maybe we were too tired. Brianna might be right that it was a stupid thing to try under those conditions. But it was my stupid idea,” he added, “not yours.”

  “Suppose we’d done all the things she said and the war started because it took us too long? Whose fault would it be then? You can’t be responsible for everything.” Kithri paused, her expression thoughtful. Her eyes blurred, as if seeing some other time, some other place. “You can’t know how things are going to turn out.”

  They went around to the far side of the laboratory dome, where a mechanically operated, ‘fixed’ door had been installed to allow them access. The entire wall had been removed, leaving the building completely open...and empty.

  No scrubjet, no tools and no trace they’d ever been there.

  “No!” Kithri dashed into the middle of the room. She halted where Brushwacker had stood, her hands extended in a gesture of utter bewilderment. Her breathing came quick and light.

  “They — they took it — ”

  Eril walked up and touched her shoulder. She dropped her arms and turned towards him.

  “Yes, but why?” he said. “I can see them calling a halt to the experiment, but not this. Where would they take it?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense!” Her voice sounded strained, as if a giant fist were clenched around her throat.

  “Unless something more has happened to Raerquel and someone else is making the decisions, unless...” He paused, seeing her horrified expression. “Let’s get back,” he said firmly. “Maybe Bri and Lennart have discovered what’s going on.”

  o0o

  Eril and Kithri burst into the common room, faces flushed, to find Brianna and Lennart seated at the central table, facing a gastropoid. It turned toward them, showing yellow-tinted head discs. Eril identified it as Raerquel’s assistant, Bhevon. Bhevon, he reminded himself, had been unfriendly, almost hostile toward them.

  “What’s the news? Is Raerquel all right?” Eril’s skin felt hot under its light sheen of sweat, and his blood-pumped muscles demanded action. He gulped air and forced his thoughts to slow down.

  “My clan-superior is suffering no prolonged malaises from your endeavor.”

  “Thank all the powers of luck and space.” Eril slid on to an empty bench. Kithri did likewise, visibly holding her tongue. “We just came from the lab. The scrubjet — our surface craft — it’s gone. What’s going on? Have you given up on the experiment?”

  “On the contrary, clan-superior Raerquel is determined to persevere. It still holds to the goal of enhanced understanding between one gastropoid mind and another.”

  The adrenalin pumping through Eril’s body left him feeling jittery and almost preternaturally alert. He didn’t need to study the unhappy expression on Lennart’s face to know something else was at issue.

  Lennart met his eyes. “They’re going to try again...without you.”

  “That’s just plain stupid!” Kithri bit off a curse and turned to Bhevon. “I know Brushwacker better than anyone living. There’s no one — human or not — who stands a better chance of making the linkage than I do. Besides, suppose you did manage a hook up with one of your Council members. Suppose it gets stuck in this estivation state like Raerquel did, how will that get you anywhere? You’ll get charged with attempted murder, we’ll get blasted, and the war will start anyway!”

  “De-estivation presents no significant problem. You are even now demonstrating that the differences between your mammalian and our evolved gastropoid brains are too great to be so easily crossed.”

  Brianna spoke up unexpectedly, “I agree with Kithri. I think entrusting your minds to an alien — that is, human — technology is too dangerous to try on your own. You ought to either keep us on as consultants or else abandon the project entirely.”

  That was a quick change of opinion, Eril thought. Kithri stared at her in frank astonishment.

  “As I said before, if you’re going to do it at all,” Brianna added, “you ought to do it right.”

  Bhevon appeared untouched by any of their arguments. “If we shrink from this experiment because of hypothetical dangers, what will the doubters and followers think — that the cause of peace is to be pursued only when it is easy? That persistence and dedication are virtues only for the war-sayers? No, peace is too important to abandon because of a few initial difficulties.”

  Kithri turned back to the gastropoid and said between clenched teeth, “While all this is going on, what have you done with my ship?”

  “They’ve taken it to their mountain city,” Lennart said grimly. “Bhevon was telling us when you came in. The situation’s gotten worse and the planetary leaders have moved there for security.”

  “You can’t do this! She’s my ship!”

  “And Raerquel is my clan-superior, who spawned my Flesh-Before-Naming!” Bhevon drew itself up to its fully erect height. “Raerquel has ordered its removal to facilitate the complete dismantlement that is necessary for full utilization. The ship’s-brain and its connections must be divorced from its housing and amplified by our own equipment.”

  Kithri leapt to her feet, looking as if she’d like to pick the table up and smash it across the gastropoid’s head section, the way she’d dealt with that miner in Hank’s bar-room story.

  “Take it easy!” Eril put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back down. He felt her resist for an instant and then yield, as if her bravado was only tissue thin.

  “Personal alliances and preferences cannot be allowed to interfere with the cause of peace,” said Bhevon. “Council-of-Ocean warned us that your co-operation could not be counted on. They said we were foolish to rely on your inconstant mammalian emotions. Raerquel insisted on your full participation in the experimentation, even over my own objections. Clearly, you cannot be trusted. Therefore, to prevent any rash actions on your part, you are now confined to these chambers.”

  o0o

 
; After Bhevon sealed the door behind itself, the echoes of its final words lingered on. Eril stared at the blank wall, rapidly discarding all of the dramatic and completely useless courses of action that sprang to mind.

  “What did I tell you?” Brianna said, but without any real malice. “Raerquel was only our ally as long as it suited its own purposes.”

  “But that purpose was stopping the war,” said Lennart. “Like Kithri said, we had to try.”

  “Meanwhile,” Eril added, “we’re trapped here. Even if Raerquel manages to pull off its peace plan, we’ll be no better than where we started. And if it doesn’t...”

  There’s got to be something we can do.

  “If Raerquel blows it, then we’re all fried,” Lennart said. “A lot of good my space ships will be to us if we can’t get to them, heyh?”

  Kithri had folded her arms on the table and buried her face in them. Eril remembered how she’d snatched the force whip from his holster and fired on Lennart’s space ghost when she thought he’d threatened her scrubjet. She’d been furious when Eril suggested using it to ferry Brianna out to the jaydium site. But it hadn’t been the jaydium that sent her off on her own, it had been the ‘jet. Now its components were probably scattered all over some gastropoid lab, all its secrets exposed, and whatever the ‘jet had meant to Kithri, it would never be hers again. There was nothing he could say to her, even if he could have found the right words.

  He went to her and hesitantly laid one hand on her shoulder. Her muscles were so hard he couldn’t tell them from bone. At first she didn’t respond. Then a shudder went through her. He felt her relax, as if her body remembered his touch from that night under the stars.

  “I’ll be all right...” She raised her head a fraction. Her voice was a ghostly whisper. “I know it’s stupid to think ‘Wacker is still mine, or that it matters. Raerquel wouldn’t care what happened to some old scrubjet, not when what’s at stake is a whole world. I know all that, it’s just I need...a little time to get used to it.”