by Greg Bear
Frobish used his foot to push Sonok away from the hatch and brought the cover around with a quick arm to slam it shut, but not before a black cable was tossed into the room. The hatch jammed on it, and sparks flew. Frobish stood clear and brought his rifle to his shoulder.
Sonok ran to me and clung to my knee. Mouse opened the cages and let the Sinieux flow onto the deck. Frobish retreated from the hatch as it shuddered. The Sinieux advanced. I heard voices from the other side. They sounded human—like children, in fact.
“Wait a minute,” I said. Mouse brought her pistol up and aimed it at me. I shut up.
The hatch flung open, and hundreds of fine cables flew into the room, twisting and seeking, wrapping and binding. They plucked Frobish’s rifle from his hands and surrounded it like antibodies on a bacterium. Mouse fired her pistol wildly and stumbled, falling into a nest of cables, which jerked and seized. Alouette was almost to the hole, but her ankles were caught and she teetered.
Cables ricocheted from the ceiling and grabbed at the bundles of Sinieux. The snakes fell apart, some clinging to the cables like insects on a frog’s tongue. More cables shot out to hold them all, except for a solitary snake that retreated past me. I was bound rigid and tight, with Sonok strapped to my knee.
The barrage stopped, and a small shadowed figure stood in the hatch, carrying a machete. It cleared the entrance of the sticky strands and stepped into the cabin light, looking around cautiously. Then it waved to companions behind, and five more entered. They were identical, each just under half a meter in height—a little shorter than Sonok—and bald and pink as infants. Their features were delicate and fetal, with large gray-green eyes and thin, translucent limbs. Their hands were stubby-fingered and plump as those on a Rubens baby. They walked into the cabin with long strides, self-assured, nimbly avoiding the cables.
Sonok jerked at a sound in the corridor—a hesitant, high-pitched mewing. “With breasts,” he mumbled through the cords.
One of the infantoids arranged a ramp over the bottom seal of the hatch. He then stepped aside and clapped to get attention. The others formed a line, pink fannies jutting, and held their hands over their heads as if surrendering. The mewing grew louder. Sonok’s trash can with breasts entered the cabin, twisting this way and that like a deranged, obscene toy. It was cylindrical, with sides tapering to a fringed skirt at the base. Three levels of pink and nippled paps ringed it at equal intervals from top to bottom. A low, flat head surmounted the body, tiny black eyes examining the cabin with quick, nervous jerks. It looked like nothing so much as the Diana of Ephesus, Magna Mater to the Romans.
One of the infantoids announced something in a piping voice, and the Diana shivered to acknowledge. With a glance around, the same infantoid nodded, and all six stood up to the breasts to nurse.
Feeding over, they took positions around the cabin and examined us carefully. The leader spoke to each of us in turn, trying several languages. None matched our own. I strained to loosen the cords around my neck and jaw and asked Sonok to speak a few of the languages he knew. He did as well as he could through his bonds. The leader listened to him with interest, then echoed a few words and turned to the other five. One nodded and advanced. He spoke to the bear in what sounded like Greek. Sonok stuttered for a moment, then replied in halting fragments.
They moved to loosen the bear’s cords, looking up at me apprehensively. The combination of Sonok and six children still at breast hit me deep, and I had to suppress a hysteric urge to laugh.
“I think he is saying he knows what has happened,” Sonok said. “They’ve been prepared for it; they knew what to expect. I think that’s what they say.”
The leader touched palms with his Greek-speaking colleague, then spoke to Sonok in the same tongue. He held out his plump hands and motioned for the bear to do likewise. A third stepped over rows of crystallized cable to loosen Sonok’s arms.
Sonok reluctantly held up his hands, and the two touched. The infantoid broke into shrill laughter and rolled on the floor. His mood returned to utmost gravity in a blink, and he stood as tall as he could, looking us over with an angry expression.
“We are in command,” he said in Russian. Frobish and his wives cried out in French, complaining about their bonds. “They speak different?” the infantoid asked Sonok. The bear nodded. “Then my brothers will learn their tongues. What does the other big one speak?”
“English,” Sonok said.
The infantoid sighed. “Such diversities. I will learn from her.” My cords were cut, and I held out my palms. The leader’s hands were cold and clammy, and his touch made my arm-hairs crawl.
“All right,” he said in perfect English. “Let us tell you what’s happened, and what we’re going to do.”
His explanation of the disruption matched mine closely. “The Alternates have done this to us.” He pointed to me. “This big one calls them Aighors. We do not dignify them with a name—we’re not even sure they are the same. They don’t have to be, you know. Whoever has the secret of disruption, in all universes, is our enemy. We are companions now, chosen from a common pool of those who have been disrupted across a century. The choosing has been done so that our natures match closely—we are all from one planet. Do you understand this idea of being companions?”
Sonok and I nodded. The Indians offered no response.
“But we, members of the Nemi, whose mother is Noctilux, we were prepared. We will take control of the aggregate ship and pilot it to a suitable point, from which we can take a perspective and see what universe we’re in. Can we expect your cooperation?”
Again the bear and I agreed, and the others were silent.
“Release them all,” the infantoid said with a magnanimous sweep of his hands. “Be warned, however—we can bind you in an instant, and we are unlikely to enjoy being attacked again.”
The cords went limp and vaporized with some heat and a slight sweet odor. The Diana rolled over the ramp and left the cabin, followed by the leader and another infantoid. The four remaining behind watched us closely, not nervous but intent on our every move. Where the guns had been, pools of slag lay on the floor.
“Looks like we’ve been overruled,” I said to Frobish. He didn’t seem to hear me.
In a few hours we were told where we would be allowed to go. The area extended to my cabin and the bathroom, which apparently was the only such facility in our reach. The Nemi didn’t seem to need bathrooms, but their recognition of our own requirements was heartening.
Within an hour of the takeover, the infantoids had swarmed over the controls in the chamber. They brought in bits and pieces of salvaged equipment, which they altered and fitted with extraordinary speed and skill. Before our next meal, taken from stores in the hole, they understood and controlled all the machinery in the cabin.
The leader then explained that the aggregate, or “scattershot,” as Sonok had called it, was still far from integrated. At least two groups had yet to be brought into the fold. These were the giant blacks in golden armor, and the beings that inhabited the transparent bubble outside the ship. We were warned that leaving the established boundaries would put us in danger.
The sleep period came. The Nemi made certain we were slumbering before they slept, if they slept at all. Sonok lay beside me on the bunk in my room, snucking faint snores and twitching over distant dreams. I stared up into the dark, thinking of the message tank. That was my hidden ace. Did it belong to one of the groups we were familiar with, or was it different, perhaps a party in itself? I wanted to see what it was capable of telling me.
I tried to bury my private thoughts—disturbing, intricate thoughts and sleep, but I couldn’t. I was dead weight now, and I’d never liked the idea of being useless. Useless things tend to get thrown out. Since joining the various academies and working my way up the line, I’d always assumed I could play a key role in any system I was tossed into.
But the infantoids, though tolerant and even understanding, were self-contained. As they said, they’d been prepa
red, and they knew what to do. Uncertainty seemed to cheer them, or at least draw them together. Of course they were never more than a few meters away from a very impressive symbol of security—a walking breast bank.
The Nemi had their Diana, Frobish had his wives, and Sonok had me. I had no one. My mind went out, imagined blackness and fields of stars, and perhaps nowhere the worlds I knew, and quickly snapped back. My head hurt, and my back muscles were starting to cramp. I had no access to hormone stabilizers, so I was starting my period. I rolled over, nudging Sonok into grumbly half-waking, and shut my eyes and mind to everything, trying to find a peaceful glade and perhaps a good memory of Jaghit Singh. But even in sleep all I found was snow and broken gray trees.
The lights came up slowly, and I was awakened by Sonok’s movements. I rubbed my eyes and rose from the bunk, standing unsteadily.
In the bathroom, Frobish and his wives were going about their morning ablutions. They looked at me but said nothing. I could feel a tension but tried to ignore it. I was irritable, and if I let any part of my feelings out, they might all pour forth—and then where would I be?
I returned to my cabin with Sonok and didn’t see Frobish following until he stepped up to the hatchway and looked inside.
“We will not accept the rule of children,” he said evenly. “We’ll need your help to overcome them.”
“Who will replace them?” I asked.
“I will. They’ve made adjustments to my machines which I and the Sinieux can handle.”
“The Sinieux cages are welded shut,” I said.
“Will you join us?”
“What could I do? I’m only a woman.”
“I will fight, my wives and you will back me up. I need the rifle you took away.”
“I don’t have it.” But he must have seen my eyes go involuntarily to the locker.
“Will you join us?” he asked.
“I’m not sure it’s wise. In fact, I’m sure it isn’t. You just aren’t equipped to handle this kind of thing. You’re too limited.”
“I have endured all sorts of indignities from you. You are a sickness of the first degree. Either you will work with us, or I will cure you now.” Sonok bristled, and I noticed the bear’s teeth were quite sharp.
I stood and faced him. “You’re not a man,” I said. “You’re a little boy. You haven’t got hair on your chest or anything between your legs—just a bluff and a brag.”
He pushed me back on the cot with one arm and squeezed up against the locker, opening it quickly. Sonok sank his teeth into the man’s calf, but before I could get into action the rifle was out and his hand was on the trigger. I fended the barrel away from me and the first shot went into the corridor. It caught a Nemi and removed the top of his head. The blood and sound seemed to drive Frobish into a frenzy. He brought the butt down, trying to hammer Sonok, but the bear leaped aside and the rifle went into the bunk mattress, sending Frobish off balance. I hit his throat with the side of my hand and caved in his windpipe.
Then I took the rifle and watched him choking against the cabin wall. He was unconscious and turning blue before I gritted my teeth and relented. I took him by the neck and found his pipe with my thumbs, then pushed from both sides to flex the blockage outward.
He took a breath and slumped.
I looked at the body in the corridor. “This is it,” I said quietly. “We’ve got to get out of here.” I slung the rifle and peered around the hatch seal. The noise hadn’t brought anyone yet. I motioned to Sonok, and we ran down the corridor, away from the Indian’s control room and the infantoids.
“Geneva,” Sonok said as we passed an armored hatch. ‘Where do we go?” I heard a whirring sound and looked up. The shielded camera above the hatch moved behind its thick gray glass like an eye. “I don’t know,” I said.
A seal had been placed over the flexible valve in the corridor that led to the bubble. We turned at that point and went past the nook where the message tank had been. It was gone, leaving a few anonymous fixtures behind.
An armored hatch had been punched into the wall several yards beyond the alcove, and it was unsealed. That was almost too blatant an invitation, but I had few choices. They’d mined the ship like termites.
The hatch led into a straight corridor without gravitation. I took Sonok by the arm and we drifted dreamily down. Pieces of vaguely familiar equipment studded the walls, and I wondered if people from my world were around here. It was an idle speculation. The way I felt now, I doubted I could make friends with anyone. I wasn’t the type to establish camaraderie under stress. I was the wintry one.
At the end of the corridor, perhaps a hundred meters down, gravitation slowly returned. The hatch there was armored and open. I brought the rifle up and looked around the seal. No one. We stepped through—and I saw the black in his golden suit, fresh as a ghost. I was surprised; he wasn’t. My rifle was up and pointed, but his weapon was down. He smiled faintly.
“We are looking for a woman known as Geneva,” he said. “Are you she?”
I nodded. He bowed stiffly, armor crinkling, and motioned for me to follow. The room around the corner was unlighted. A port several meters wide, ribbed with steel beams, opened onto the starry dark. The stars were moving, and I guessed the ship was rolling in space. I saw other forms in the shadows, large and bulky, some human, some not. Their breathing made them sound like predators waiting for prey.
A hand took mine, and a shadow towered over me. “This way.”
Sonok clung to my calf, and I carried him with each step I took. He didn’t make a sound. As I passed from the viewing room, I saw a blue-and-white curve begin at the top of the port and caught an outline of continent. Asia, perhaps. We were already near Earth. The shapes of the continents could remain the same in countless universes, immobile grounds beneath the thin and pliable paint of living things. What was life like in the distant world-lines where even the shapes of the continents had changed?
The next room was also dark, but a candle flame flickered behind curtains. The shadow that had guided me returned to the viewing room and shut the hatch. I heard the breathing of only one besides myself.
I was shaking. Would they do this to us one at a time? Yes, of course; there was too little food. Too little air. Not enough of anything on this tiny scattershot. Poor Sonok, by his attachment, would go before his proper moment.
The breathing came from a woman, somewhere to my right. I turned to face her general direction. She sighed. She sounded very old, with labored breath and a kind of pant after each intake.
I heard a slight pop of dry lips parting to speak, then the tiny click of eyelids blinking. The candle flame wobbled in a current of air. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that the curtains formed a translucent cubicle in the dark.
“Hello,” the woman said. I answered weakly. “Is your name Francis Geneva?”
I nodded, then, in case she couldn’t see me, said, “I am.”
“I am Junipero,” she said, aspirating the j as in Spanish. “I was commander of the High-space ship Callimachus. Were you a commander on your ship?”
“No,” I replied. “I was part of the crew.”
“What did you do?”
I told her in a spare sentence or two, pausing to cough. My throat was like parchment.
“Do you mind stepping closer? I can’t see you very well.”
I walked forward a few steps.
“There is not much from your ship in the way of computers or stored memory,” she said. I could barely make out her face as she bent forward, squinting to examine me. “But we have learned to speak your language from those parts that accompanied the Indian. It is not too different from a language in our past, but none of us spoke it until now. The rest of you did well. A surprising number of you could communicate, which was fortunate. And the little children who suckle—the Nemi—they always know how to get along. We’ve had several groups of them on our voyages.”
“May I ask what you want?”
�
�You might not understand until I explain. I have been through the mutata several hundred times. You call it disruption. But we haven’t found our home yet, I and my crew. The crew must keep trying, but I won’t last much longer. I’m at least two thousand years old, and I can’t search forever.”
“Why don’t the others look old?”
“My crew? They don’t lead. Only the top must crumble away to keep the group flexible. Only those who lead. You’ll grow old, too. But not the crew. They’ll keep searching.”
“What do you mean, me?”
“Do you know what ‘Geneva’ means, dear sister?”
I shook my head, no.
“It means the same thing as my name, Junipero. It’s a tree that gives berries. The one who came before me, her name was Jenevr, and she lived twice as long as I, four thousand years. When she came, the ship was much smaller than it is now.”
“And your men—the ones in armor—”
“They are part of my crew. There are women, too.”
“They’ve been doing this for six thousand years?”
“Longer,” she said. “It’s much easier to be a leader and die, I think. But their wills are strong. Look in the tank, Geneva.”
A light came on behind the cubicle, and I saw the message tank. The murky fluid moved with a continuous swirling flow. The old woman stepped from the cubicle and stood beside me in front of the tank. She held out her finger and wrote something on the glass, which I couldn’t make out.
The tank’s creatures formed two images, one of me and one of her. She was dressed in a simple brown robe, her peppery black hair cropped into short curls. She touched the glass again, and her image changed. The hair lengthened, forming a broad globe around her head. The wrinkles smoothed. The body became slimmer and more muscular, and a smile came to the lips. Then the image was stable.
Except for the hair, it was me.
I took a deep breath. “Every time you’ve gone through a disruption, has the ship picked up more passengers?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “We always lose a few, and every now and then we gain a large number. For the last few centuries our size has been stable, but in time we’ll probably start to grow. We aren’t anywhere near the total yet. When that comes, we might be twice as big as we are now. Then we’ll have had, at one time or another, every scrap of ship, and every person who ever went through a disruption.”