In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  That didn’t excuse her.

  He did like the shower. It hadn’t taken much to convince him he didn’t need to conserve water—or the lather—although he’d inhaled a lungful of both at first and choked so loudly it had brought an anxious steward to the door. He’d reassured the man and been more careful.

  Aisha had apologized for what she called spartan accommodations. Malley knew the reference, but couldn’t see why she’d use it for a private, one-only room for washing and dressing. He supposed she had a similarly low opinion of the clothing laid out for him. Not for him to boast these were the finest, newest clothes he’d had against his skin for years.

  He surveyed the result in the mirror. White pants, like the crew’s, loose ankled over comfortable, slipperlike shoes. The pants were long enough, but he had to draw the waist fastener half around again to keep them in place. Good thing the ship’s interior was so warm, since they couldn’t find anything with sleeves to fit him. He’d been informed something was being made—imagine that—if he wouldn’t mind wearing this yellow sleeveless vest. Malley thought it more likely this was Grant’s way of preventing him from easily blending in with the crew. On a ship this size, on its first voyage, surely not everyone would be known on sight.

  Malley pulled the knife and Earther weapon from their concealment in his old clothes and tucked them into a pocket and the waist respectively of his new ones. So, he told himself, I’m to be trusted with these. He’d already checked the weapon and found it contained a full load of ten trank doses. An interesting choice, if not particularly useful against things like locked doors. A knife was more—all purpose.

  It said a great deal about the Earthers that they’d faced the mob with only tranks. Stupid as well as brave, Malley decided, but he was impressed in spite of himself. Whatever one could say about Gail Smith—and he could think of a lot—her soldiers played by civilized rules.

  His stomach growled again. Malley ignored it, preferring to pay attention to his hands and arms, their cuts now glued into thin white lines. A permanent mend, he’d been told, that would be reabsorbed and disappear once the tissues beneath had healed. Beat the staples the doctor had punched through his upper thigh last year, after a fragment of steel had become a little too intimate. The bruising on his shoulders, something Malley rarely noticed, was fading as Aisha claimed it would. She’d applied a soothing cream to the skin before he showered. Nice hands, as well as voice.

  His hair. Malley scowled, then dug his fingers into it again. The Earthers’ lather hadn’t changed its dull red—something he’d half expected—and its dense, at-attention style still seemed ready to resist anything but exceptionally sharp scissors. He found if he wet his fingers—a distracting luxury—he could pull the mass into something that looked planned.

  Ready for inspection, as the saying went, although stationers normally used it to refer to things hidden that should be, with everything else out where expected. Kept Station Admin happy. Malley patted the pocket with his new, second knife, the long, thin one he’d borrowed from a table in the lab, and thought it appropriate.

  “Still no change.”

  Malley gazed down at Aaron and saw at least one: they’d managed to wrap his friend’s torso in a sort of gown. It trapped the little blue bubbles over its surface until it looked more like a layer of froth than fabric. Malley had hoped for something a little closer to real clothing. Now he’d have to scrounge something and keep it ready.

  When—not if—Aaron woke up, he wanted them both set to move quickly.

  Out which door? Malley had made sure to check the exits. There was no telling how long the reprieve would last. That’s how it felt around here, with the formidable Gail Smith temporarily out of the way. He’d done her a favor, recognizing her imminent collapse from the boost, and was quite sure she wouldn’t be grateful for it. Gail had that much in common with Aaron. He hated being warned of weakness, too.

  “Do you see something wrong, Mr. Malley?” Philips had a quick, quiet voice, like someone used to talking in a room full of sleeping children. He was one of the several lab techs constantly hovering over the instruments connected to Aaron’s strange boxlike bath. Right now, he was hovering at Malley’s right elbow.

  “Just Malley,” the stationer said absently. He registered the question. “Nothing wrong—if you mean does he look the same. Are you getting good results from the pancreatic sampler?”

  “What pancreatic sampler?” Philips replied innocently.

  Malley hid a grim smile as he wandered over to the banks of equipment. “My mistake,” he said, adding another dib to his mental balance sheet against Dr. Gail Smith.

  There were three techs working at the moment, all of whom gave him a curious look then turned back to their readouts and valves. No scientists. Ship’s night, Malley reminded himself. Convenient, having a set time when the bosses were asleep.

  The lab itself, now that he’d had time to examine it, seemed intentionally temporary, something oddly comforting to the stationer. It was about three times the size of Sammie’s, high-ceilinged with purposefully asymmetrical walls. The lighting was localized around working stations, such as the one near Aaron’s tank. There were six others with collections of equipment and cluttered tables, as though experimenters had been forced to abandon their work with Aaron’s arrival. The lights on those were diminished. Malley wondered if they’d protested or if Gail Smith’s control of this place was absolute.

  One thing was clear: this wasn’t any sort of hospital or medical facility.

  Most of the walls were as mobile as his bed or Aaron’s tank. Marks on the floor revealed how the room had taken different configurations in the past—perhaps some larger than this. He had taken a close look, when no one had stopped his prowling about. Malley had a feeling Gail hadn’t decided whether to call him a prisoner or a guest.

  Grant had an opinion on that. Two of the five closed doors in the walls were guarded by his people, making those the only doors of interest to Malley. One was used by the techs and scientists coming and going, so they likely led to other sections of the science sphere—perhaps quarters as well. Malley noted, then firmly ignored the second guarded doorway, knowing it probably led somewhere he’d leave to Aaron.

  Of the unguarded doors, one was the room with the shower Malley had enjoyed. Another was to a storage area. The third?

  Someone had ordered a portable screen placed in front of it, similar to the two flanking his bed off to one side of Aaron’s tank. Her doing. For Aaron’s sake, Malley was willing to accept any help dealing with his personal demon, but this rankled. It was ridiculous to feel safer simply because from most of the room he couldn’t see what was obviously an air lock. It was potentially very dangerous, given the source of his comfort.

  Not an exit he planned to use, however, so Malley didn’t bother looking toward it. Two of the—First Defense Unit, that was it—stood inside each of the guarded doors, their eyes never leaving him. Their scrutiny didn’t bother Malley; he’d grown up within a crowd of people watching his every move. Wasn’t easy for a kid who liked to play pranks, but he’d managed more times than not.

  One of the best techniques was simply to be numbingly predictable. During the eight hours since Gail Smith had left, Malley had established his routine: he’d check on his unconscious friend, then watch the techs at work for a while. Following that, he’d take a few moments to stretch out on his bed, reading the literature Gail Smith had sent for him, nibbling from a tray of “safe for the novice” delicacies Aisha had arranged. Then a stretch and back to check on Aaron.

  Malley was prepared to keep this up for days, if necessary. The food was great.

  And he was learning. Gail recognized his capabilities, he gave her credit. What she’d supplied to him appeared to be summaries of her research on the Quill, including several unpublished papers with Titan U’s bright red “official release only” stamps on every page. He dove into her work, reading voraciously.

  Make that desperatel
y, since the first thing Malley learned was how much Gail Smith and these Earthers knew about the Quill—and how appallingly little he or anyone else did. While no one could confirm what they looked like now, the original Quill had borne no resemblance to any rumor or so-called fact he’d grown up “knowing.” No three-meter giants with googly eyes and long tentacles. No jellylike masses hiding in dark crawlways. The truth about them was . . . not threatening at all.

  At first.

  It had been deep-space explorers, Gail’s work confirmed, who’d found the Quill—or found what became the Quill. They’d reported finding what looked like thin, long filaments of iridescent plastic on a distant world, a world with a thriving, alien ecosystem. Otherwise, S-9131 Sigma-D was another disappointment, cataloged and left. In those days, humanity had been looking for others, confident the universe had to be crowded with nonhuman intelligence. In those days, the search had enraptured everyone.

  The explorers enjoyed a rare freedom in their search, but paid for it with extremes of isolation, boredom, and unending failure. Little wonder that they sought diversion wherever they could. The Quill were one such.

  Who first discovered that the lovely filaments would cling to bare skin? It wasn’t recorded. Nothing official ever was, since the explorers and their pilots weren’t supposed to transport alien life, no matter how innocuous it appeared. No, all that existed were personal records and diaries. Gail had searched hundreds of these with a tenacity Malley found remarkable and others probably thought obsessed.

  It was clear that filaments were taken off S-913 1 Sigma-D by someone. Why? They looked pretty. They were harmless. Some diaries claimed they weren’t alive at all, since they ate nothing, changed nothing, and produced nothing. An organic oddity. A diversion.

  The thought of their nemesis reduced to a diversion offended Malley—but it had inspired Gail Smith. A digger, all right, Malley thought with grudging approval, rereading the copy of a letter he couldn’t believe she’d found—or that he could be holding in his own hands.

  Titan University Archives Excerpts from the personal recordings of Chief Terraform Engineer Susan Witts Access Restricted to Clearance AA2 or Higher

  ... You don’t know me, young Jeremy. I’ve obeyed your father’s wish and stayed out of your lives. Don’t worry. I know he’s gone. As usual, the news reached me a year too late. A lifetime late. At this point, I can’t imagine it would do any good to suddenly reappear and be your grandmother.

  But I hope you don’t mind my writing to you. It comforts me, even though I’ll never send these letters. You might read them one day—after I’m gone, too. I’d like to be remembered by my own flesh and blood. History no longer seems enough.

  Things have been difficult. Does the news make it out to your freighter, or do you hear it in the stations where you dock? I keep track of you as best I can. It’s Titan, TerraCor, and Earth. They can’t make up their collective minds, if they have any. First, they want the project accelerated. Seems they started the immigration drive too soon—or it was too successful. Now hundreds of thousands of people have left their jobs and packed to go.

  We explain that we’re rushing the plant growth as much as physically possible, but if they insist, well, early settlement will mean restricting people to the better-established areas. That’s what they want, so we get ready. But suddenly Titan and the other universities are arguing with the Earth Research Council—some nonsense about slowing us down to allow another cycle of reviews and debates on genetic drift in the terraformed plants. Fine. We get ready to slow down again. I’ve no problem with caution.

  But the ERC gets wind of this and what wisdom results? While one set of bureaucrats is talking delays, another authorizes TerraCor to start moving immigrants to the stations, even though they’ll have to be packed in like sardines. Something about how they’d become a nuisance at the spaceports, filling up hotels and camping outside the fields. As if being first is going to matter so much.

  Maybe it is, Jeremy. Not for why they rush to come—not to get the most or have the best. But because those first few to land will be the last to see these worlds as we do—as I do. Vast, open, waiting. Ready to become whatever the colonists decide. With sixteen different worlds, there’s room for a lot of choices. Do they know they’re an experiment? That humanity is tossing handfuls of itself outward and waiting to see what springs forth?

  Some of the others are eager to greet the new tenants. I’m not. I’ll leave well before then. Titan’s rumbling about my heading the Department of Terraforming. I won’t put up with it, Jeremy. The next set of worlds are ready and I’ll be working out there, or I’ll retire. I’m not sitting behind a desk. I’m not living under a dome.

  I do have some good news, in case you think your grandmother does nothing but complain. A box arrived yesterday with an old spacer friend of mine. He snuck it through customs—said it was brandy. It wasn’t. Somehow he’d come across a case of untouched Quill and wanted me to have it.

  They’ll probably be everywhere by the time you finally receive this letter, but right now, these lovely things are about as rare as sense in a funding committee. Spacers hoard them almost religiously. I’ve never had one of my own before. I tried to refuse or at least pay—he could probably have traded them for a ship—but he wouldn’t hear of it. I assured him I’d share his gift with the other team leaders. They deserve them. And need them, too, the way things are right now.

  Quill. I doubt anyone who hasn’t worn one understands the name. But it’s true. I have mine around my wrist now, Jeremy, and it gives me such a feeling of peace and calm. It’s quite remarkable, as though the Quill can filter out the worst of any negative emotions and enhance the comfortable ones. See why the name’s an inside joke with spacers? Instead of popping tranquilizers, you wear your ’quil.

  I’d send you one, but I’ve only enough untouched Quill for my team. And I couldn’t bear to be without mine—even if it would transfer to you. Not now.

  I’ll need mine, Jeremy. Very soon, everyone will expect me to smile and be gracious as I give away these beautiful worlds. They’ll be watching to see I’m properly grateful for the plaques and memorials, for my page in the archives. They’ll want me to show how happy and fulfilled I am at the end of my life’s work, so they can take it from me with an easy conscience.

  Is that how I’ll feel? It doesn’t matter. It’s my final duty to grant them the illusion of success.

  Malley reread the letter each time he sat on the bed, trying to imagine what it had been like before the Quill, each time angrier at how huge an accomplishment had been destroyed by so small, so human, a mistake.

  There were other reports clipped to this letter. Gail, on a hunch or because she didn’t appear capable of ignoring any detail, had correlated medical records and drug requests among deep-space pilots with diary entries mentioning the Quills. It was commonplace—though officially frowned upon—for pilots to rely on stress-relieving drugs. No one argued with what kept them sane and willing to fly.

  Sure enough, pilots mentioning the Quill had the lowest drug use of all. In fact, they had superb records and, in many cases, accepted more and longer missions than average.

  Malley couldn’t blame them. Drug use, except for beer and boost, was almost unknown on Thromberg—not because people wouldn’t have sold their souls for a chance to escape their reality, but because Sol System, Earth in particular, refused to allow any quantities of drugs to reach the station. ’Tastic? A local product with a limited clientele, since users didn’t last long.

  But what if the stationers and immies had something that could numb fear and make them happy, without causing them to space walk sans helmets?

  They’d all be on it, and fight to keep it.

  Gail Smith argued, persuasively, that the path of the Quill to the terraformed worlds led back to S-9131 Sigma-D. It was one of the red-stamped “eyes-only” papers, that stamp explaining why news of the discovery of the Quill homeworld had never reached the station.
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  Gail Smith argued, just as persuasively, that the deadly Quill Effect had to be connected with the organisms’ known action on the human nervous system. There were no papers dealing with how, or why, the Quill had changed from soothing pets to a menace once they reached the terraformed worlds. Had they multiplied until their tranquilizing effect actually killed? Was the Quill filament the inanimate stage of a virulent plague, released once on a suitable planet? There had been literally hundreds of possible mechanisms and countermeasures proposed, but not one had ever been tested. There remained the central problem: no Quill filaments were safely in reach.

  The science was fascinating, if occasionally obscure—not surprising, given Malley’s own knowledge base was eclectic and self-taught, not comprehensive. He probably would have read it all at once, but, every so often, a turn of phrase would suddenly jump out as Gail Smith’s. That was usually when Malley would toss the reader aside and check on Aaron.

  Besides, Malley knew it really didn’t matter whether the Quill were three-meter googly-eyed monsters or mind-bending organic jewelry—they’d stolen the terraformed worlds and that was that.

  Watching the techs was more worthwhile. Malley asked vague questions, more to mislead than to get real answers. They soon stopped being concerned about his presence and talked freely among themselves. Most of their efforts involved assessing Aaron’s present physical state. They were monitoring everything he’d ever heard of, as well as things he didn’t know could be monitored. In each case so far, their results seemed to be falling within expected norms. There was a brief flurry of excitement when one of the analyses turned up an anomaly—then calibrations were checked and the interesting anomaly vanished.

  Gail Smith’s so-called “pancreatic sampler” remained a mystery. Malley presumed it was an attempt to somehow intercept whatever passed through the gold vessels under Aaron’s skin. The techs were silent on that one. Since no one knew if there was anything inside—or if they were vessels at all and not simply an unusual coloration—Malley intended to have this particular testing end as soon as someone in authority woke up. Which should be soon.