Far Thoughts and Pale Gods

by Greg Bear

  “Not an ‘it,’” Sonok said. “I’m an ours.”

  “Small ours,” the Indian retorted.

  Sonok bristled and turned away. “Enough,” I said. “You haven’t fallen into hell, not literally. We’ve been hit by something called a disrupter. It snatched us from different universes and reassembled us according to our world-lines, our … affinities.”

  The Indian smiled contemptuously at my obvious ignorance—or madness.

  “Listen, do you understand how crazy this is?” I demanded, exas­perated. “I’ve got to get things straight. The beings who did this—in my universe they’re called ‘Aighors.’ Do you know about them?”

  He shook his head. “I know of no beings but those of Earth. I went to look for worlds.”

  “Is your ship a warper ship—does it travel across a geodesic in higher spaces?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It is not in phase with the crest of the Stellar Sea, but slips between the foamy length, where we must struggle to obey all laws.”

  That was a fair description of translating from status geometry—our universe—to higher geometries. It was more poetic than scien­tific, but he was here, so it worked.

  “How long have your people been able to travel this way?”

  “Ten years. And yours?”

  “Three centuries,” I said.

  He nodded in appreciation. “You know then what you speak.”

  “I wish I knew it all.”

  He inclined his head, being gracious for once. “Perhaps there aren’t any devils, and we are not in hell. Not this time.”

  “How do you use your instruments in here?”

  “I do not, generally. The Sinieux use them. If you will not be upset, I’ll demonstrate.”

  I glanced at Sonok, who was still sulking. “Are you afraid of the snakes?”

  The bear shook his head.

  “Bring them in,” I said. “And perhaps we should know each other’s name?”

  “Jean Frobish,” the Indian said. And I told him mine.

  At his whistled command, the snakes entered and assembled in the middle of the cabin. There were two sets, each made up of about fifty. When meshed, they made two formidable meta-serpents. Fro­bish instructed them with spoken commands and a language that sounded like birdcalls. Perfect servants, they obeyed faultlessly and without hesitation. They went to the controls at his command and made a few manipulations, then turned to him and delivered, one group at a time, a report in consonantal hisses and claps. The ex­change was uncanny and chilling. Jean nodded, and the serpents dis­assembled.

  “Are they specially bred?” I asked.

  “Tectonogenetic farming,” he said. “They are excellent workers and have no will of their own, since they have no cerebrums. They can remember, and en masse can think, but not for themselves, if you see what I mean.” He showed another glimmer of a smile. He was proud of his servants.

  “I think I understand. Sonok, were you specially bred?”

  “Was mascot,” Sonok said. “Can breed for myself, given chance.”

  The subject was touchy, I could see. I could also see that Frobish and Sonok wouldn’t get along without friction. If Sonok had been a big bear—and not a Russian—instead of an ursine dwarf, the Indian might have had more respect for him.

  “Jean, can you command the whole ship from here?”

  “Those parts that answer.”

  “Can your computers tell you how much of the ship will respond?”

  “What is left of my vessel responds very well. The rest is balky or blank entirely. I was trying to discover the limits when I encountered you.”

  “You met the people who’ve been putting in the armored hatches?’

  He nodded. “Bigger than Masai,” he said.

  I now had explanations for some of the things we’d seen and could link them with terrestrial origins. Jean and his Sinieux weren’t beyond the stretch of reason, nor was Sonok. The armored hatches weren’t quite as mysterious now. But what about the canine? I swallowed. That must have been the demon Frobish killed. And beyond the triplet valves?

  “We’ve got a lot to find out,” I said.

  “You and the animal, are you together, from the same world?” Frobish asked. I shook my head. “Did you come alone?”

  I nodded. “Why?”

  “No men, no soldiers?”

  I was apprehensive now. “No.”

  “Good.” He stood and approached a blank wall near the gray pillar. “Then we will not have too many to support, unless the ones in golden armor want our food.” He put his hand against the wall, and a round opening appeared. In the shadow of the hole, two faces watched with black eyes glittering.

  “These are my wives,” Frobish said. One was dark-haired and slender, no more than fifteen or sixteen. She stepped out first and looked at me warily. The second, stockier and flatter of face, was brown-haired and about twenty. Frobish pointed to the younger first. “This is Alouette,” he said. “And this is Mouse. Wives, acquaint with Francis Geneva.” They stood one on each side of Frobish, holding his elbows, and nodded at me in unison.

  That made four humans, more if the blacks in golden armor were men. Our collage had hit the jackpot.

  “Jean, you say your machines can get along with the rest of the ship. Can they control it? If they can, I think we should try to return to Earth.”

  “To what?” Sonok asked. “Which Earth waits?”

  “What’s the bear talking about?” Frobish asked.

  I explained the situation as best I could. Frobish was a sophis­ticated engineer and astrogator, but his experience with other continua—theoretical or actual—was small. He tightened his lips and lis­tened grimly, unwilling to admit his ignorance. I sighed and looked to Alouette and Mouse for support. They were meek, quiet, giving all to the stolid authority of Frobish.

  “What woman says is we decide where to go,” Sonok said. “Depends, so the die is tossed, on whether we like the Earth we would meet.”

  “You would like my Earth,” Frobish said.

  “There’s no guarantee it’ll be your Earth. You have to take that into account.”

  “You aren’t making sense.” Frobish shook his head. “My decision is made, nonetheless. We will try to return.”

  I shrugged. “Try as best you can.” We would face the truth later.

  “I’ll have the Sinieux watch over the machines after I start instructions,” Frobish said. “Then I would like Francis to come with me to look at the animal I killed.” I agreed without thinking about his motives. He gave the meta-serpents their orders and pulled down a panel cover to reveal a small board designed for human hands. When he was through programming the computers, he continued his instructions to the Sinieux. His rapport with the animals was per­fect—the interaction of an engineer with his tool. There was no thought of discord or second opinions. The snakes, to all intents and purposes, were machines keyed only to his voice. I wondered how far the obedience of his wives extended.

  “Mouse will find food for the bear, and Alouette will stand guard with the fusil. Comprens?” The woman nodded, and Alouette plucked a rifle from the hideaway. “When we return, we will all eat.”

  “I will wait to eat with you,” Sonok said, standing near me.

  Frobish looked the bear over coldly. “We do not eat with tectoes,” he said, haughty as a British officer addressing his servant. “But you will eat the same food we do.”

  Sonok stretched out his arms and made two shivers of anger. “I have never been treated less than a man,” he said. “I will eat with all or not eat.” He looked up at me with his small golden eyes and asked in Russian, “Will you go along with him?”

  “We don’t have much choice,” I answered haltingly in kind.

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Play along for the moment. I understand.” I was unable to read his expression behind the black mask and white markings; but if I’d been he, I’d have questioned the understanding. This was no time
, however, to instruct the bear in assertion.

  Frobish opened the hatch to the wrecked room and let me step in first. He then closed the hatch and sealed it. “I’ve seen the body,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

  “I want your advice on this room,” he said. I didn’t believe that for an instant. I bent to more carefully examine the creature between the chairs.

  “What did it do to you?” I asked.

  “It came at me. I thought it was a demon. I shot it, and it died.”

  “What caused the rest of this damage?”

  “I fired many rounds,” he said. “I was frightened. I’m calm now.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “This—he or she—might have been able to help us.”

  “Looks like a dog,” Frobish said. “Dogs cannot help.”

  For me, that crossed the line. “Listen,” I said tightly, standing back from the body. “I don’t think you’re in touch with what’s going on here. If you don’t get in touch soon, you could get us all killed. I’m not about to let myself die because of one man’s stupidity.”

  Frobish’s eyes widened. “Women do not address men thus,” he said.

  “This woman does, friend! I don’t know what kind of screwy social order you have in your world, but you had damn well better get used to interacting with different sexes, not to mention different species! If you don’t, you’re asking to end up like this poor thing. It didn’t have a chance to say friend or foe, yea or nay! You shot it out of panic, and we can’t have any more of that!” I was trembling.

  Frobish smiled over grinding teeth and turned to walk away. He was fighting to control himself. I wondered if my own brains were in the right place. The few aspects of this man that were familiar to me couldn’t begin to give complete understanding. I was clearly out of my depth, and kicking out to stay afloat might hasten death, not slow it.

  Frobish stood by the hatch, breathing deeply. “What is the dog-creature? What is this room?”

  I turned back to the body and pulled it by one leg from between the chairs. “It was probably intelligent,” I said. “That’s about all I can tell. It doesn’t have any personal effects.” The gore was getting to me, and I turned away for a moment. I was tired—oh, so tired I could feel the weary rivers dredging through my limbs. My head hurt abominably. “I’m not an engineer,” I said. “I can’t tell if any of this equipment is useful, or even if it’s salvageable. Care to give an opinion?”

  Frobish glanced over the room with a slight inclination of one eye­brow. “Nothing of use.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am sure.” He looked across the room and sniffed the air. “Too much burned and shorted. You know, there is much that is danger­ous here.”

  “Yes,” I said, leaning against the back of a seat.

  “You will need protection.”

  “Oh.”

  “There is no protection like the bonds of family. You are argumen­tative, but my wives can teach you our ways. With bonds of family, there will be no uncertainty. We will return, and all will be well.”

  He caught me by surprise, and I wasn’t fast on the uptake. “What do you mean, bonds of family?”

  “I will take you to wife and protect you as husband.”

  “I think I can protect myself, thank you.”

  “It doesn’t seem wise to refuse. Left alone, you will probably be killed by such as this.” He pointed at the canine.

  “We’ll have to get along whether we’re family or not. That shouldn’t be too hard to understand. And I don’t have any inclination to sell myself for security.”

  “I do not pay money for women!” Frobish said. “Again you ridicule me.”

  He sounded like a disappointed little boy. I wondered what his wives would think, seeing him butt his head against a wall without sense or sensibility.

  “We’ve got to dispose of the body before it decays,” I said. “Help me carry it out of here.”

  “It isn’t fit to touch.”

  My tiredness took over. “You goddamned idiot! Pull your nose down and look at what’s going on around you! We’re in serious trouble—”

  “It isn’t the place of a woman to speak thus, I’ve told you,” he said. He approached and raised his hand palm-high to strike. I instinctively raised one arm to deflect his blow, lowered my head, and threw a fist into his abdomen. His slap fell like a kitten’s paw and he went over, glancing off my shoulder and twisting my arm into a painful kink. Somehow, he hit his head going down. He was out cold.

  I cursed and rubbed the knotted spot, then sat down on the deck to consider what had happened. I’d never had much experience with sexism in human cultures. It was disgusting and hard to accept, but some small voice in the back of my mind told me it was no more blameworthy than any other social altitude. His wives appeared to go along with it. At any rate, the situation was now completely shot to hell. There was little I could do except drag him back to his wives and try to straighten things out when he came to. I took him by both hands and pulled him up to the hatch. I unsealed it, then swung him around to take him by the shoul­ders.

  I retched when one of his shoulders broke the crust on a drying pool of blood and smeared red along the deck.

  I miss Jaghit Singh more than I can admit. I think about him and wonder what he’d do in this situation. He is a short, dark man with perfect features and eyes like those in the pictures of Krishna. We formally broke off our relationship three weeks ago, at my behest, for I couldn’t see any future in it. He would probably know how to handle Frobish, with a smile and even a spirit of comradeship, but without contradicting his own beliefs. Jaghit had a knack for making a girl’s child­hood splinters regroup to form the whole log. He could make these beasts and distortions come together again.

  Jaghit! Are you anywhere that has seasons? Is it still winter for you? You never did understand the little girl who wanted to play in the snow. Your blood is too hot and regular to stand up to my moments of indecisive coldness, and you could not—would not—force me to change. I was caught between child and my thirty-year-old form, between spring and winter.

  Is it spring for you now?

  Alouette and Mouse took their husband away from me, spitting with rage. They weren’t speaking clearly, but what they shouted in quasi-French made it obvious who they blamed.

  I told Sonok what had happened, and he looked very somber indeed. “Maybe he’ll shoot us when he wakes up,” he suggested. To avoid that circumstance, I appropriated the rifle and took it back to my half-room. There was an intact cabinet, and I still had the key. I didn’t lock the rifle in, however; better simply to hide it and have easy access if I needed it.

  High time to start being smart and diplomatic, though all I really wanted for the moment was blessed sleep. My shoulder stung like hell, and the muscles still refused to get themselves straight.

  When I returned, Sonok walking point a few steps ahead, Frobish was conscious and sitting up in a cot pulled from a panel near the hole. His wives squatted nearby, somber as they ate from metal dishes.

  Frobish refused to look me in the eye. Alouette and Mouse weren’t in the least reluctant, however, and their gazes threw sparks. They’d be good in a fight, if it ever came to that. I hoped I wasn’t their opposite.

  “I think it’s time we behaved reasonably,” I said.

  “There is no reason on this ship,” Frobish shot back.

  “Aye on that,” Sonok said, sitting down to a plate left on the floor. He picked at it, then reluctantly ate, his fingers handling the imple­ments with agility.

  “If we’re at odds, we won’t get anything done,” I said.

  “That is the only thing which stops me from killing you,” Frobish said. Mouse bent to whisper in his ear. “My wife reminds me you must have time to see the logic of our ways.” Were the women lucid despite their anger, or was he maneuvering on his own? “There is also the possibility that you are a leader. I’m a leader, and at times, it’s difficult for me to fa
ce another leader. That is why I alone control this ship.”

  “I’m not a—” I bit my lip. Not too far, too fast. “We’ve got to work together and forget about being leaders for the moment.”

  Sonok sighed and put down the plate. “I have no leader,” he said. “That part of me did not follow into this scattershot.” He leaned on my leg. “Mascots live best when made whole. So I choose Geneva as my other part. I think my English is good enough now for us to understand.”

  Frobish looked at the bear, expression unreadable. “My stomach hurts,” he said after a moment, and turned to me. “You do not hit like a woman. A woman strikes for the soft parts, masculine weaknesses. You go for direct points with knowledge. I cannot accept you as the bear does, but if you will reconsider, we should be able to work together.”

  “Reconsider the family bond?”

  He nodded. To me, he was almost as alien as his snakes. I gave up the fight and decided to play for time.

  “I’ll have to think about it. My upbringing … is hard to overcome,” I said.

  “We will rest,” Frobish said.

  “And Sonok will guard,” I suggested. The bear straightened perceptibly and went to stand by the hatch. For the moment it looked like a truce had been made, but as cots were pulled out of the walls, I picked up a metal bar and hid it in my trousers.

  The Sinieux went to their multilevel cages and lay quiet and still. I slipped into the cot and pulled a thin sheet over myself. Sleep came immediately, and delicious lassitude finally unkinked my arm.

  I don’t know how long the nap lasted, but it was broken sharply by a screech from Sonok. “They’re here! They’re here!”

  I stumbled out of the cot, tangling one leg in a sheet, and came to a stand only after the Indian family was alert and armed. So much, I thought, for hiding the rifle. “What’s here?” I asked, still dopey.