Guest of Honor

by Robert Reed

  Killing himself rather than face his fear.

  Of course, she thought. Why not?

  And he took Pico as his audience, knowing she'd be a good audience. Because they were lovers. Because he must have decided that he could convince her in his fearlessness one last time, leaving his legend secure. Immortal, in a sense.

  That's what you were thinking...

  ...wasn't it?

  And she shivered, holding both legs close to her mouth, and feeling the warm misery of her doomed hip.

  —

  She sat for a couple more hours, neither sleeping nor feeling the slightest need for sleep. Finally she rose and used the bathroom, and after a long, careful look through the windows, she ordered the door to open, and stepped outside, picking a reasonable direction and walking stiffly and quickly on the weakened leg.

  Opera emerged from the shadows, startling her.

  “If you want to escape,” he whispered, “I can help. Let me help you, please."

  The face was handsome in the moonlight, young in every fashion. He must have guessed her mood, she realized, and she didn't allow herself to become upset. Help was important, she reasoned. Even essential. She had to find her way across a vast and very strange alien world. “I want to get back into orbit,” she told him, “and find another starship. We saw several. They looked almost ready to embark.” Bigger than the Kyber, and obviously faster. No doubt designed to move even deeper into the endless wilderness.

  “I'm not surprised,” Opera told her. “And I understand."

  She paused, staring at him before asking, “How did you guess?"

  “Living forever inside our heads ... That's just a mess of metaphysical nonsense, isn't it? You know you'll die tomorrow. Bits of your brain will vanish inside us, made part of us, and not vice versa. I think it sounds like an awful way to die, certainly for someone like you"

  “Can you really help me?"

  “This way,” he told her. “Come on."

  They walked for an age, crossing the paddock and finally reaching the wide tube where the skimmers shot past with a rush of air. Opera touched a simple control, then said, “It won't be long,” and smiled at her. Just for a moment. “You know, I almost gave up on you. I thought I must have read you wrong. You didn't strike me as someone who'd go quietly to her death..."

  She had a vague, fleeting memory of the senior Opera. Gazing at the young face, she could recall a big, warm hand shaking her hand, and a similar voice saying, “It's very good to meet you, Pico. At last!"

  “I bet one of the new starships will want you.” The young Opera was telling her, “You're right. They're bigger ships, and they've got better facilities. Since they'll be gone even longer, they've been given the best possible medical equipment. That hip and your general body should respond to treatments—"

  “I have experience,” she whispered.

  “Pardon me?"

  “Experience.” She nodded with conviction. “I can offer a crew plenty of valuable experience."

  “They'd be idiots not to take you."

  A skimmer slowed and stopped before them. Opera made the windows opaque—"So nobody can see you"—and punched in their destination, Pico making herself comfortable.

  “Here we go,” he chuckled, and they accelerated away.

  There was an excitement to all of this, an adventure like every other. Pico realized that she was scared, but in a good, familiar way. Life and death. Both possibilities seemed balanced on a very narrow fulcrum, and she found herself smiling, rubbing her hip with a slow hand.

  They were moving fast, following Opera's instructions.

  “A circuitous route,” he explained. “We want to make our whereabouts less obvious. All right?"

  “Fine."

  “Are you comfortable?"

  “Yes,” she allowed. “Basically."

  Then she was thinking about the others—the other survivors from the Kyber—wondering how many of them were having second or third thoughts. The long journey home had been spent in cold-sleep, but there had been intervals when two or three of them were awakened to do normal maintenance. Not once did anyone even joke about taking the ship elsewhere. Nobody had asked, “Why do we have to go to Earth?” The obvious question had eluded them, and at the time, she had assumed it was because there were no doubters. Besides herself, that is. The rest believed this would be the natural conclusion to full and satisfied lives; they were returning home to a new life and an appreciative audience. How could any sane compilation think otherwise?

  Yet she found herself wondering.

  Why no jokes?

  If they hadn't had doubts, wouldn't they have made jokes?

  Eight others had survived the mission. Yet none were as close to Pico as she had been to Tyson. They had saved each other's proverbial skin many times, and she did feel a sudden deep empathy for them, remembering how they had boarded nine separate shuttles after kisses and hugs and a few careful tears, each of them struggling with the proper things to say.

  But what could anyone say at such a moment? Particularly when you believed that your companions were of one mind, and, in some fashion, happy...

  Pico said, “I wonder about the others,” and intended to leave it at that. To say nothing more.

  “The others?"

  “From the Kyber. My friends.” She paused and swallowed, then said softly, “Maybe I could contact them."

  “No,” he responded.

  She jerked her head, watching Opera's profile.

  “That would make it easy to catch you.” His voice was quite sensible and measured. “Besides,” he added, “can't they make up their own minds? Like you have?"

  She nodded, thinking that was reasonable. Sure.

  He waited a long moment, then said, “Perhaps you'd like to talk about something else?"

  “Like what?"

  He eyed Pico, then broke into a wide smile. “If I'm not going to inherit a slice of your mind, leave me another story. Tell ... I don't know. Tell me about your favorite single place. Not a world, but some favorite patch of ground on any world. If you could be anywhere now, where would it be? And with whom?

  Pico felt the skimmer turning, following the tube. She didn't have to consider the question—her answer seemed obvious to her—but the pause was to collect herself, weighing how to begin and what to tell.

  “In the mountains on Erindi 3,” she said, “the air thins enough to be breathed safely, and it's really quite pretty. The scenery, I mean."

  “I've seen holos of the place. It is lovely."

  “Not just lovely.” She was surprised by her authority, her self-assured voice telling him, “There's a strange sense of peace there. You don't get that from holos. Supposedly it's produced by the weather and the vegetation ... They make showers of negative ions, some say ... And it's the colors, too. A subtle interplay of shades and shadows. All very one-of-a-kind."

  “Of course,” he said carefully.

  She shut her eyes, seeing the place with almost perfect clarity. A summer storm had swept overhead, charging the glorious atmosphere even further, leaving everyone in the party invigorated. She and Tyson, Midge, and several others had decided to swim in a deep-blue pool near their campsite. The terrain itself was rugged, black rocks erupting from the blue-green vegetation. The valley's little river poured into a gorge and the pool, and the people did the same. Tyson was first, naturally. He laughed and bounced in the icy water, screaming loud enough to make a flock of razor-bats take flight. This was only the third solar system they had visited, and they were still young in every sense. It seemed to them that every world would be this much fun.

  She recalled—and described—diving feet first. She was last into the pool, having inherited a lot of caution from her parents. Tyson had teased her, calling her a coward and then worse, then showing where to aim. “Right here! It's deep here! Come on, coward! Take a chance!"

  The water was startlingly cold, and there wasn't much of it beneath the shiny flowing surface.
She struck and hit the packed sand below, and the impact made her groan, then shout. Tyson had lied, and she chased the bastard around the pool, screaming and finally clawing at his broad back until she'd driven him up the gorge walls, him laughing and once, losing strength with all the laughing, almost tumbling down on top of her.

  She told Opera everything.

  At first, it seemed like an accident. All her filters were off; she admitted everything without hesitation. Then she told herself that the man was saving her life and deserved the whole story. That's when she was describing the lovemaking between her and Tyson. That night. It was their first time, and maybe the best time. They did it on a bed of mosses, perched on the rim of the gorge, and she tried to paint a vivid word picture for her audience, including smells and the textures and the sight of the double moons overhead, colored a strange living pink and moving fast.

  Their skimmer ride seemed to be taking a long time, she thought once she was finished. She mentioned this to Opera, and he nodded soberly. Otherwise, he made no comment.

  I won't be disembodied tomorrow, she told herself.

  Then she added, Today, I mean today.

  She felt certain now. Secure. She was glad for this chance and for this dear new friend, and it was too bad she'd have to leave so quickly, escaping into the relative safety of space. Perhaps there were more people like Opera ... people who would be kind to her, appreciating her circumstances and desires ... supportive and interesting companions in their own right...

  And suddenly the skimmer was slowing, preparing to stop.

  When Opera said, “Almost there,” she felt completely at ease. Entirely calm. She shut her eyes and saw the raw, wild mountains on Erindi 3, storm clouds gathering and flashes of lightning piercing the howling winds. She summoned a different day, and saw Tyson standing against the storms, smiling, beckoning for her to climb up to him just as the first cold, fat raindrops smacked against her face.

  The skimmer's hatch opened with a hiss.

  Sunlight streamed inside, and she thought: Dawn. By now, sure...

  Opera rose and stepped outside, then held a hand out to Pico. She took it with both of hers and said, “Thank you,” while rising, looking past him and seeing the paddock and the familiar faces, the green ground and the giant tent with its doorways opened now, various birds flying inside and out again ... and Pico most surprised by how little she was surprised, Opera still holding her hands, and his flesh dry, the hand perfectly calm.

  * * * *

  The autodocs stood waiting for orders.

  This time, Pico had been carried from the skimmer, riding cradled in a robot's arms. She had taken just a few faltering steps before half-crumbling. Exhaustion was to blame. Not fear. At least it didn't feel like fear, she told herself. Everyone told her to take it easy, to enjoy her comfort; and now, finding herself flanked by autodocs, her exhaustion worsened. She thought she might die before the cutting began, too tired now to pump her own blood or fire her neurons or even breathe.

  Opera was standing nearby, almost smiling, his pleasure serene and chilly and without regrets.

  He hadn't said a word since they left the skimmer.

  Several others told her to sit, offering her a padded seat with built-in channels to catch any flowing blood. Pico took an uneasy step toward the seat, then paused and straightened her back, saying, “I'm thirsty,” softly, her words sounding thoroughly parched.

  “Pardon?” they asked.

  “I want to drink ... some water, please...?"

  Faces turned, hunting for a cup and water.

  It was Opera who said, “Will the pond do?” Then he came forward, extending an arm and telling everyone else, “It won't take long. Give us a moment, will you?"

  Pico and Opera walked alone.

  Last night's ducks were sleeping and lazily feeding. Pico looked at their metallic green heads, so lovely that she ached at seeing them, and she tried to miss nothing. She tried to concentrate so hard that time itself would compress, seconds turning to hours, and her life in that way prolonged.

  Opera was speaking, asking her, “Do you want to hear why?"

  She shook her head, not caring in the slightest.

  “But you must be wondering why. I fool you into believing that I'm your ally, and I manipulate you—"

  “Why?” she sputtered. “So tell me."

  “Because,” he allowed, “it helps the process. It helps your integration into us. I gave you a chance for doubts and helped you think you were fleeing, convinced you that you'd be free ... and now you're angry and scared and intensely alive. It's that intensity that we want. It makes the neurological grafts take hold. It's a trick that we learned since the Kyber left Earth. Some compilations tried to escape, and when they were caught and finally incorporated along with their anger—"

  “Except, I'm not angry,” she lied, gazing at his self-satisfied grin.

  “A nervous system in flux,” he said. “I volunteered, by the way."

  She thought of hitting him. Could she kill him somehow?

  But instead, she turned and asked, “Why this way? Why not just let me slip away, then catch me at the spaceport?"

  “You were going to drink,” he reminded her. “Drink."

  She knelt despite her hip's pain, knees sinking into the muddy bank and her lips pursing, taking in a long, warmish thread of muddy water, and then her face lifting, the water spilling across her chin and chest, and her mouth unable to close tight.

  “Nothing angers,” he said, “like the betrayal of someone you trust."

  True enough, she thought. Suddenly she could see Tyson leaving her alone on the ocean floor, his private fears too much, and his answer being to kill himself while dressed up in apparent bravery. A kind of betrayal, wasn't that? To both of them, and it still hurt...

  “Are you still thirsty?” asked Opera.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “Then drink. Go on."

  She knelt again, taking a bulging mouthful and swirling it with her tongue. Yet she couldn't make herself swallow, and after a moment, it began leaking out from her lips and down her front again. Making a mess, she realized. Muddy, warm, ugly water, and she couldn't remember how it felt to be thirsty. Such a little thing, and ordinary, and she couldn't remember it.

  “Come on, then,” said Opera.

  She looked at him.

  He took her arm and began lifting her, a small, smiling voice saying, “You've done very well, Pico. You have. The truth is that everyone is very proud of you."

  She was on her feet again and walking, not sure when she had begun moving her legs. She wanted to poison her thoughts with her hatred of these awful people, and for a little while, she could think of nothing else. She would make her mind bilious and cancerous, poisoning all of these bastards and finally destroying them. That's what she would do, she promised herself. Except, suddenly she was sitting on the padded chair, autodocs coming close with their bright, humming limbs; and there was so much stored in her mind—worlds and people, emotions heaped on emotions—and she didn't have the time she would need to poison herself.

  Which proved something, she realized.

  Sitting still now.

  Sitting still and silent. At ease. Her front drenched and stained brown, but her open eyes calm and dry.

  * * *

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