“Don’t kill me, don’t, please, don’t.”
I rolled on top of her. “Kamala!” I wriggled one arm free and used it to pry myself from her. I scrabbled sideways to the top step. She lurched clumsily in the microgravity and swung at me; her fingernails raked across the back of my hand, leaving bloody welts. “Kamala, stop!” It was all I could do not to strike back at her. I retreated down the steps.
“You bastard. What are you assholes trying to do to me?” She drew several shuddering breaths and began to sob.
“The scan got corrupted somehow. Silloin is working on it.”
= The difficulty is obscure, = said Silloin from the control room.
“But that’s not your problem.” I backed toward the bench.
“They lied,” she mumbled and seemed to fold in upon herself as if she were just skin, no flesh or bones. “They said I wouldn’t feel anything and … do you know what it’s like … it’s…”
I fumbled for her clingy. “Look, here are your clothes. Why don’t you get dressed? We’ll get you out of here.”
“You bastard,” she repeated, but her voice was empty.
She let me coax her down off the gantry. I counted nubs on the wall while she fumbled back into her clingy. They were the size of the old dimes my grandfather used to hoard and they glowed with a soft golden bioluminescence. I was up to forty-seven before she was dressed and ready to return to reception D.
Where before she had perched expectantly at the edge of the couch, now she slumped back against it. “So what now?” she said.
“I don’t know.” I went to the kitchen station and took the carafe from the distiller. “What now, Silloin?” I poured water over the back of my hand to wash the blood off. It stung. My earstone was silent. “I guess we wait,” I said finally.
“For what?”
“For her to fix…”
“I’m not going back in there.”
I decided to let that pass. It was probably too soon to argue with her about it, although once Silloin recalibrated the scanner, she’d have very little time to change her mind. “You want something from the kitchen? Another cup of tea, maybe?”
“How about a gin and tonic—hold the tonic?” She rubbed beneath her eyes. “Or a couple of hundred milliliters of serentol?”
I tried to pretend she’d made a joke. “You know the dinos won’t let us open the bar for migrators. The scanner might misread your brain chemistry and your visit to Gend would be nothing but a three year drunk.”
“Don’t you understand?” She was right back at the edge of hysteria. “I am not going!” I didn’t really blame her for the way she was acting but, at that moment, all I wanted was to get rid of Kamala Shastri. I didn’t care if she went on to Gend or back to Lunex or over the rainbow to Oz, just as long as I didn’t have to be in the same room with this miserable creature who was trying to make me feel guilty about an accident I had nothing to do with.
“I thought I could do it.” She clamped hands to her ears as if to keep from hearing her own despair. “I wasted the last two years convincing myself that I could just lie there and not think and then suddenly I’d be far away. I was going someplace wonderful and strange.” She made a strangled sound and let her hands drop into her lap. “I was going to help people see.”
“You did it, Kamala. You did everything we asked.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t not think. That was the problem. And then there she was, trying to touch me. In the dark. I had not thought of her since.…” She shivered. “It’s your fault for reminding me.”
“Your secret friend,” I said.
“Friend?” Kamala seemed puzzled by the word. “No, I wouldn’t say she was a friend. I was always a little bit scared of her, because I was never quite sure of what she wanted from me.” She paused. “One day I went up to 10W after school. She was in her chair, staring down at Bloor Street. Her back was to me. I said, ‘Hi, Ms. Ase.’ I was going to show her a genie I had written, only she didn’t say anything. I came around. Her skin was the color of ashes. I took her hand. It was like picking up something plastic. She was stiff, hard—not a person anymore. She had become a thing, like a feather or a bone. I ran; I had to get out of there. I went up to our apartment and I hid from her.”
She squinted, as if observing—judging—her younger self through the lens of time. “I think I understand now what she wanted. I think she knew she was dying; she probably wanted me there with her at the end, or at least to find her body afterward and report it. Only I could not. If I told anyone she was dead, my parents would find out about us. Maybe people would suspect me of doing something to her—I don’t know. I could have called security but I was only ten; I was afraid somehow they might trace me. A couple of weeks went by and still nobody had found her. By then it was too late to say anything. Everyone would have blamed me for keeping quiet for so long. At night I imagined her turning black and rotting into her chair like a banana. It made me sick; I couldn’t sleep or eat. They had to put me in the hospital, because I had touched her. Touched death.”
= Michael, = Silloin whispered, without any warning flash. = An impossibility has formed. =
“As soon as I was out of that building, I started to get better. Then they found her. After I came home, I worked hard to forget Ms. Ase. And I did, almost.” Kamala wrapped her arms around herself. “But just now she was with me again, inside the marble … I couldn’t see her but somehow I knew she was reaching for me.”
= Michael, Parikkal is here with Linna. =
“Don’t you see?” She gave a bitter laugh. “How can I go to Gend? I’m hallucinating.”
= It has broken the harmony. Join us alone. =
I was tempted to swat at the annoying buzz in my ear.
“You know, I’ve never told anyone about her before.”
“Well, maybe some good has come of this after all.” I patted her on the knee. “Excuse me for a minute?” She seemed surprised that I would leave. I slipped into the hall and hardened the door bubble, sealing her in.
“What impossibility?” I said, heading for the control room.
= She is pleased to reopen the scanner? =
“Not pleased at all. More like scared shitless.”
= This is Parikkal, = My earstone translated his skirring with a sizzling edge, like bacon frying. = The confusion was made elsewhere. No mishap can be connected to our station. =
I pushed through the bubble into the scan center. I could see the three dinos through the control window. Their heads were bobbing furiously. “Tell me,” I said.
= Our communications with Gend were marred by a transient falsehood, = said Silloin. = Kamala Shastri has been received there and reconstructed. =
“She migrated?” I felt the deck shifting beneath my feet. “What about the one we’ve got here?”
= The simplicity is to load the redundant into the scanner and finalize.… =
“I’ve got news for you. She’s not going anywhere near that marble.”
= Her equation is not in balance. = This was Linna, speaking for the first time. Linna was not exactly in charge of Tuulen Station; she was more like a senior partner. Parikkal and Silloin had overruled her before—at least I thought they had.
“What do you expect me to do? Wring her neck?”
There was a moment’s silence—which was not as unnerving as watching them eye me through the window, their heads now perfectly still.
“No,” I said.
The dinos were skirring at each other; their heads wove and dipped. At first they cut me cold and the comm was silent, but suddenly their debate crackled through my earstone.
= This is just as I have been telling, = said Linna. = These beings have no realization of harmony. It is wrongful to further unleash them on the many worlds. =
= You may have reason, = said Parikkal. = But that is a later discussion. The need is for the equation to be balanced. =
= There is no time. We will have to discard the redundant ourselv
es. = Silloin bared her long brown teeth. It would take her maybe five seconds to rip Kamala’s throat out. And even though Silloin was the dino most sympathetic to us, I had no doubt she would enjoy the kill.
= I will argue that we adjourn human migration until this world has been rethought, = said Linna.
This was the typical dino condescension. Even though they appeared to be arguing with each other, they were actually speaking to me, laying the situation out so that even the baby sapient would understand. They were informing me that I was jeopardizing the future of humanity in space. That the Kamala in reception D was dead whether I quit or not. That the equation had to be balanced and it had to be now.
“Wait,” I said. “Maybe I can coax her back into the scanner.” I had to get away from them. I pulled my earstone out and slid it into my pocket. I was in such a hurry to escape that I stumbled as I left the scan center and had to catch myself in the hallway. I stood there for a second, staring at the hand pressed against the bulkhead. I seemed to see the splayed fingers through the wrong end of a telescope. I was far away from myself.
She had curled into herself on the couch, arms clutching knees to her chest, as if trying to shrink so that nobody would notice her.
“We’re all set,” I said briskly. “You’ll be in the marble for less than a minute, guaranteed.”
“No, Michael.”
I could actually feel myself receding from Tuulen Station. “Kamala, you’re throwing away a huge part of your life.”
“It is my right.” Her eyes were shiny.
No, it wasn’t. She was redundant; she had no rights. What had she said about the dead old lady? She had become a thing, like a bone.
“Okay, then.” I jabbed at her shoulder with a stiff forefinger. “Let’s go.” She recoiled. “Go where?”
“Back to Lunex. I’m holding the shuttle for you. It just dropped off my afternoon list; I should be helping them settle in, instead of having to deal with you.”
She unfolded herself slowly.
“Come on.” I jerked her roughly to her feet. “The dinos want you off Tuulen as soon as possible and so do I.” I was so distant, I couldn’t see Kamala Shastri anymore.
She nodded and let me march her to the bubble door.
“And if we meet anyone in the hall, keep your mouth shut.”
“You’re being so mean.” Her whisper was thick.
“You’re being such a baby.”
When the inner door glided open, she realized immediately that there was no umbilical to the shuttle. She tried to twist out of my grip but I put my shoulder into her, hard. She flew across the airlock, slammed against the outer door and caromed onto her back. As I punched the switch to close the door, I came back to myself. I was doing this terrible thing—me, Michael Burr. I couldn’t help myself: I giggled. When I last saw her, Kamala was scrabbling across the deck toward me but she was too late. I was surprised that she wasn’t screaming again; all I heard was her ferocious breathing.
As soon as the inner door sealed, I opened the outer door. After all, how many ways are there to kill someone on a space station? There were no guns. Maybe someone else could have stabbed or strangled her, but not me. Poison how? Besides, I wasn’t thinking, I had been trying desperately not to think of what I was doing. I was a sapientologist, not a doctor. I always thought that exposure to space meant instantaneous death. Explosive decompression or something like. I didn’t want her to suffer. I was trying to make it quick. Painless.
I heard the whoosh of escaping air and thought that was it; the body had been ejected into space. I had actually turned away when thumping started, frantic, like the beat of a racing heart. She must have found something to hold onto. Thump, thump, thump! It was too much. I sagged against the inner door—thump, thump—slid down it, laughing. Turns out that if you empty the lungs, it is possible to survive exposure to space for at least a minute, maybe two. I thought it was funny. Thump! Hilarious, actually. I had tried my best for her—risked my career—and this was how she repaid me? As I laid my cheek against the door, the thumps started to weaken. There were just a few centimeters between us, the difference between life and death. Now she knew all about balancing the equation. I was laughing so hard I could scarcely breathe. Just like the meat behind the door. Die already, you weepy bitch!
I don’t know how long it took. The thumping slowed. Stopped. And then I was a hero. I had preserved harmony, kept our link to the stars open. I chuckled with pride; I could think like a dinosaur.
* * *
I popped through the bubble door into Reception D. “It’s time to board the shuttle.”
Kamala had changed into a clingy and velcro slippers. There were at least ten windows open on the wall; the room filled with the murmur of talking heads. Friends and relatives had to be notified; their loved one had returned, safe and sound. “I have to go,” she said to the wall. “I will call you when I land.”
She gave me a smile that seemed stiff from disuse. “I want to thank you again, Michael.” I wondered how long it took migrators to get used to being human. “You were such a help and I was such a … I was not myself.” She glanced around the room one last time and then shivered. “I was really scared.”
“You were.”
She shook her head. “Was it that bad?”
I shrugged and led her out into the hall.
“I feel so silly now. I mean, I was in the marble for less than a minute and then—” she snapped her fingers—“there I was on Gend, just like you said.” She brushed up against me as we walked; her body was hard under the clingy. “Anyway, I am glad we got this chance to talk. I really was going to look you up when I got back. I certainly did not expect to see you here.”
“I decided to stay on.” The inner door to the airlock glided open. “It’s a job that grows on you.” The umbilical shivered as the pressure between Tuulen Station and the shuttle equalized.
“You have got migrators waiting,” she said.
“Two.”
“I envy them.” She turned to me. “Have you ever thought about going to the stars?”
“No,” I said.
Kamala put her hand to my face. “It changes everything.” I could feel the prick of her long nails—claws, really. For a moment I thought she meant to scar my cheek the way she had been scarred.
“I know,” I said.
COMING OF AGE IN KARHIDE
Sov Thade Tage em Ereb, of Rer, in Karhide, on Gethen (Ursula K. Le Guin)
Here’s another brilliant Hainish story by Ursula K. Le Guin, whose novella “A Woman’s Liberation” appears elsewhere in this anthology. In this one, she returns to the setting of her most famous novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, for a poignant and evocative story of the transition to adulthood—which is always a difficult passage, no matter what sex you are … and which is perhaps even a little more difficult if you have the potential to be either.
I live in the oldest city in the world. Long before there were kings in Karhide, Rer was a city, the marketplace and meeting ground for all the Northeast, the Plains, and Kerm Land. The Fastness of Rer was a center of learning, a refuge, a judgment seat fifteen thousand years ago. Karhide became a nation here, under the Geger kings, who ruled for a thousand years. In the thousandth year Sedern Geger, the Unking, cast the crown into the River Arre from the palace towers, proclaiming an end to dominion. The time they call the Flowering of Rer, the Summer Century, began then. It ended when the Hearth of Harge took power and moved their capital across the mountains to Erhenrang. The Old Palace has been empty for centuries. But it stands. Nothing in Rer falls down. The Arre floods through the street-tunnels every year in the Thaw, winter blizzards may bring thirty feet of snow, but the city stands. Nobody knows how old the houses are, because they have been rebuilt forever. Each one sits in its gardens without respect to the position of any of the others, as vast and random and ancient as hills. The roofed streets and canals angle about among them. Rer is all corners. We say that the Harges left bec
ause they were afraid of what might be around the corner.
Time is different here. I learned in school how the Orgota, the Ekumen, and most other people count years. They call the year of some portentous event Year One and number forward from it. Here it’s always Year One. On Getheny Them, New Year’s Day, the Year One becomes one-ago, one-to-come becomes One, and so on. It’s like Rer, everything always changing but the city never changing.
When I was fourteen (in the Year One, or fifty-ago) I came of age. I have been thinking about that a good deal recently.
It was a different world. Most of us had never seen an Alien, as we called them then. We might have heard the Mobile talk on the radio, and at school we saw pictures of Aliens—the ones with hair around their mouths were the most pleasingly savage and repulsive. Most of the pictures were disappointing. They looked too much like us. You couldn’t even tell that they were always in kemmer. The female Aliens were supposed to have enormous breasts, but my Mothersib Dory had bigger breasts than the ones in the pictures.
When the Defenders of the Faith kicked them out of Orgoreyn, when King Emran got into the Border War and lost Erhenrang, even when their Mobiles were outlawed and forced into hiding at Estre in Kerm, the Ekumen did nothing much but wait. They had waited for two hundred years, as patient as Handdara. They did one thing: they took our young king off-world to foil a plot, and then brought the same king back sixty years later to end her wombchild’s disastrous reign. Argaven XVII is the only king who ever ruled four years before her heir and forty years after.
The year I was born (the Year One, or sixty-four-ago) was the year Argaven’s second reign began. By the time I was noticing anything beyond my own toes, the war was over, the West Fall was part of Karhide again, the capital was back in Erhenrang, and most of the damage done to Rer during the Overthrow of Emran had been repaired. The old houses had been rebuilt again. The Old Palace had been patched again. Argaven XVII was miraculously back on the throne again. Everything was the way it used to be, ought to be, back to normal, just like the old days—everybody said so.
The Year's Best SF 13 # 1995 Page 75