In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “We came for the sample,” Pardell objected. “Just give me a minute more.” He moved quickly, in case the filament released and dropped to the ground, but it stayed in place until his fingers pulled it free.

  ... Welcome.

  Pardell almost threw the slender filament into the stasis box, slamming closed the lid. The one on his other leg dropped and disappeared into the ground.

  “Hurry up!”

  “Done,” he told Dafoe, picking up the box as well as his gloves and headgear, clutching the pile to his chest. “Let’s go.”

  Almost running, Pardell made it to the ramp only to have Dafoe hold up her arm to stop him. He halted with barely enough room to avoid her touch. “What’s—that?” Her voice was almost a whisper. She was looking behind him. Pardell turned and stared.

  That . . . a spot marked by the end of the trail they’d stamped into the grass. That . . . place where the grass was coming free from its roots, whirling in a column that reached more than head high.

  “Wind can do that,” Pardell heard himself say. He might have believed it, if the air against his face wasn’t perfectly still.

  “It doesn’t do that ...” Dafoe replied, as the column began to condense into a shape.

  Before Pardell could do more than gasp, the shape became something more, something they knew.

  Human. A woman, woven from grass and Quill filaments, standing in what was now a circle of disturbed, black earth.

  Disturbingly vague in detail, but the figure had two outstretched arms, holding what could have been a baby. Holding it out toward them.

  Pardell dropped what he was carrying. He bent and began collecting the gloves, box, and headgear by feel, never taking his eyes from the statue.

  Dafoe’s voice came sharp, hard, and clear: “Dafoe here . . . Commander Grant. Code Alpha Prime. One, Niner, Niner. Do you copy, Seeker? I repeat . . . Alpha Prime. One, Niner, Niner.

  “We have a First Contact situation.”

  Chapter 64

  GAIL had thought she understood the Quill—well enough to find them, and destroy them when she did.

  She’d thought she was in charge of this ship and its mission—that all aboard, with the notable exception of the Titan-serving Reinsez and his few cohorts, obeyed her commands.

  What else would she be wrong about today? Gail wondered, shaking her head wearily.

  At least Pardell and Dafoe were safe. She had to trust they were. She hadn’t seen or talked to either since the FD specialist delivered her code.

  Alpha Prime. One, Niner, Niner. First Contact. Words setting a blur of events in motion with the smoothness of extensive planning and complete determination. Gail had barely time to be stunned by the words and their implications before Grant had commandeered the intership comm, rattling off a string of equally incomprehensible codes that echoed throughout the Seeker.

  He now ruled her ship.

  Oh, Grant had had help, she reminded herself. The First Defense Unit had come on board twenty-five strong. Twenty-five in blindingly obvious uniforms; twenty-five men and women so physically similar no one—especially herself—had thought to look for anyone else.

  Of the Seeker’s crew complement, it now appeared that three-quarters were also FDs. Of the Seeker’s scientific population, a depressingly significant number of techs and even a few of the scientists had responded immediately to Grant’s coded instructions.

  As a mutiny, Gail decided, it likely held a record for the most willing participants.

  “What’s going to happen?”

  Startled out of her thoughts, Gail looked up at Captain Tobo. Both of them had been evicted—courteously—from the bridge. It was no consolation that Szpindel had been among those barred from the command sphere. She shrugged. “I’ve no idea, my esteemed Captain. At least Titan U and Vincente are unlikely to worry about my little transgression in light of all this.” Gail waved around the room.

  Tobo’s eyes twinkled. “There’s that,” he agreed, taking a seat at her table. They’d been herded into the science sphere’s dining lounge two hours ago, Tobo spending much of that time in huddled conversation with others of his crew. Gail had decided she might as well take a late supper, if she was going to be here any longer. “Although I’ve heard three patrol ships are en route. On the behest of a concerned Titan University,” he mimicked a worried parent, “following those alarming reports from their esteemed representative.”

  Gail took her time cutting, stabbing, and chewing her next mouthful. “Three, huh?” she mumbled thoughtfully after a moment, then swallowed. “That’s all?”

  Tobo helped himself to a roll from the basket between them. “Well, Vincente may have realized it was somewhat unlikely you’d single-handedly hijacked this ship, despite Reinsez’s hysteria. He knows you. Three might seem to him accountably frugal, while sufficient to escort back one unsuccessful project leader . . . if you were wrong.”

  “I wasn’t,” Gail said with sudden, fierce delight. “I wasn’t wrong about the Quill. They are here. The suits work. And, best of all, we have a living sample.”

  “All true. So Vincente and Titan will doubtless take the position you acted on their authority to achieve these marvelous things,” Tobo said with cheerful irony. “You will be famous, of course. As you always wanted.”

  “Maybe in another lifetime, Tomoki.” Gail lost her appetite and sat back, gazing at her old friend. “Or maybe it was another me . . . someone who cared about a reputation, about arriving on Earth to bands and parades. Gail Smith—the Salvation of Humanity.”

  There was no judgment on his gentle, round face—only understanding. “Whether you still seek fame or not, you’ve earned it,” he assured her. “Defeating the Quill will mean everything to those people back on the stations. You will have saved them.”

  “Will I?” Gail shook her head. “Are you sure I haven’t doomed them?” She drew little circles on the table with one finger. “I’ve read how strong the First Contact movement was on Earth, before the disaster of the Quill shifted power to the Reductionists. Now? We’ve caught the stations between those who want Earth to look outward and those who’d make translight taboo—if they could figure out the right incantation.”

  She paused, then tapped the tabletop in emphasis. “Think about it. If the Quill are intelligent—where does that put our mission? We were supposed to find a way to destroy the things, not talk to them! The stations? What do we tell them? And it could get worse, much worse.” Gail steadied her voice. “What position will Earth take, if the first alien intelligence we meet turns out to have already conquered every human-inhabited planet outside of Sol System? Can the Quill be proved murderers? People will start taking sides, Tomoki. The riots on Thromberg might only be a taste.”

  Tobo shook his head. “It doesn’t have to come to that. You have the people and expertise on this ship to determine if the Quill are intelligent. If they aren’t . . . nothing’s changed. If they are? Then we ask them to stop killing us.”

  Gail laughed bitterly. “Right. The last time I thanked your wife for supper, Ayo thought I was asking for a second helping. And that’s between two biologically similar individuals who knew the precise context of the conversation, as well as understanding several words in each other’s language. Who both have a language! I don’t care how many linguists and comm techs Grant’s tucked on this ship—they aren’t experts in communicating with anything as alien as the Quill.”

  “Your young man might be.”

  No doubt the same thoughts were going through Grant’s head, Gail told herself. No matter her reasoned arguments for Tobo, her calm exterior, she knew herself so angry her very blood felt like ice—knew herself so deeply betrayed she had no trouble keeping her fury contained.

  Until she had a target.

  Chapter 65

  MALLEY knew the signs, all right.

  Aisha and the rest of the science staff who’d gathered in the lab were milling around, a dozen conversations underway at once as they tried
to make sense out of what was happening. They were surprised by Gail Smith’s sudden absence from the comm and her “replacement” by Commander Grant and his second, Tau—but not alarmed. Of more concern, it seemed, was the time it was taking the FD to deliver the long-awaited sample of Quill tissue to their hands. The hint of an alien intelligence at work had them buzzing with excitement. Still, they’d been told to wait here and be ready; most seemed prepared to wait as long as that took, as long as they would be involved in this momentous discovery.

  Like ’tastic junkies, every one. Malley doubted any had noticed the FDs’ reaction to the mysterious codes Grant had snapped out over the comm, or seen how those assigned to the lab had quietly stepped outside, then closed and locked the doors behind themselves.

  He was quite sure no one else had seen how about a quarter of those gathered in here to watch the landing on Pardell’s World had exchanged startled, excited looks, then, gradually, moved together to form a quiet, cohesive group—separate from the others, but not obviously, nothing so blatant . . .

  He knew the signs.

  This was how it had always started on Thromberg, whenever Station Admin had had enough of Outward Five’s independent ways and scanty record keeping, and planned a cleanup visit. From one minute to the next, there would be new voices on the public comms, new faces at the ration distribution points and checkpoints. As suddenly, there would be a wordless sorting out among those in groups—lines drawn between those prepared to support, or at least tolerate, Admin when it arrived in numbers, and those bloody-minded enough to want to scrap about it first.

  Martial law or mutiny. It depended on your starting point.

  Grant’s was obvious. The military, obeying its older mandate to find and protect alien intelligence, had taken control of the Seeker from Gail Smith and, so, Titan University. That, Malley told himself grimly, could be an improvement. Grant had brought Aaron back to the ship. Point in his favor.

  Aaron hadn’t been seen since. Point against.

  Gail must have been locked away—Malley grinned. Definite point in Grant’s favor.

  He was locked in here. While Malley wasn’t happy about it, it was better than being locked up elsewhere—or being searched. One of his first tasks had been to double-check his small arsenal. Two knives and the trank. Well, a little more than that now, Malley admitted to himself: three knives, the trank, the comm he’d somehow forgotten to return to Taggart, and a set of tools most on Thromberg would consider very useful indeed. And a roll of remarkably strong string he knew Aaron would like.

  Handy pockets Earthers put into their clothing.

  The statue, or whatever it was, still dominated the room. At some point, everyone in the lab—including Malley, though he found the backdrop of sky and irregular ground somewhat unsettling—had stared, transfixed by the final image left on the screen. Grant’s idea, he had no doubt. Make sure the first and only sign of purposeful action by the Quill stayed in their faces at all times, lest any in here doubt it or, Malley growled to himself, lest anyone think the First Defense Unit was off its collective rocker taking over the ship for a planetful of slime.

  The Earther scientists seemed well on their way to group insanity, some excited to tears.

  The stationer couldn’t deny the slime had indeed constructed a compelling image—what troubled him wasn’t the fact, but the intent. The figure of a woman and baby was a message for one human in particular, Aaron Pardell. Given Aaron’s tendency to drift from reality under ordinary conditions, Malley wasn’t at all comfortable with where his friend’s mind might be wandering after this.

  It would help if he knew where his friend was, period.

  Chapter 66

  WHERE was Pardell? There’d been no word, nothing. He would have contacted her—Gail knew it—if he could.

  Gail had expected better of Grant. What would it hurt his rebellion to keep her posted on the Athena’s return? He’d been friends with Aaron—he knew she’d want to know the ’sider was safe.

  At the very least, Grant knew she’d spent most of her life—and risked what remained of it—trying to find the Quill. Where was her sample?

  Gail sipped her tea and smiled quite menacingly at the figure rushing to her table.

  “You have to do something, Dr. Smith! This situation—it’s intolerable! Simply intolerable!”

  Considering the unmistakable aroma of sherry accompanying these emphatic statements, Gail was quite impressed Reinsez was tackling any word more challenging than her name. “What do you expect me to do, Manuel,” she asked, bored enough to be curious. “Call up the good commander and ask for my ship back?”

  “You could call in the patrol ships—” Even this inebriated, Reinsez realized when he’d let something major slip. His normally gloomy face assumed an almost deathlike pallor. “You could call Titan and have them send patrol ships,” he said hastily.

  Gail arched one eyebrow. “Let me have your translight comm and I’ll shout as loud as you’d like.”

  Reinsez’s eyes scanned the dining lounge as though looking for help, stopping a moment where Rosalind Fournier was deep in conversation with First Officer Szpindel. “What makes you think I’d have such a thing?” he blustered.

  “Clever,” Gail acknowledged, her voice silky smooth. “Forming an alliance with the leader of the ’siders? I wouldn’t have thought you capable, dear Manuel. Still, even the formidable Rosalind can’t access equipment that isn’t here, can she?” Gail leaned her elbows on the table, resting her chin in her hands. “What was your bargain with her?” She shook her head. “No, don’t tell me. Let’s see if I can guess. With Szpindel’s help, she could get you our destination easily—after all, Rosalind could open the records from the Merry Mate II and retrieve her course data; you’d only need to get her into my office safe to access my copies. How did you contact Titan after Grant and I took away your comm privileges? You had your own—and where better to hide it than with—Rosalind! Did you promise her entry codes to Sol System in return for her help against me?”

  Gail made as if to stand. “Should I go over to Rosalind and mention—just casually, you realize—that you knew full well you’d never be able to obtain such codes? What might we expect from the woman who’s already risked her own life and that of several hundred thousand other people?”

  “No. Sit down. Please, Gail.” Reinsez licked his lips, then blurted out: “I don’t want to die out here. I want to go home.”

  The truth at last, she judged it, whether brought out by the sherry or the honest dread of an old and frightened man.

  Gail settled back into her seat, doing her best to appear calm and confident. “Then, Manuel,” she informed Titan’s spy, “you’d better be ready to back any play I choose to make, because your safety and comfort aren’t even on our good commander’s list.”

  More than that, she didn’t bother saying. The man was drunk and scared enough to be careless—if he was even capable of remembering their conversation. No, Gail thought, gazing around the room at a truly pitiful collection of potential allies—other than Tobo, whom Grant would be watching like a hawk—she wouldn’t be relying on Reinsez or his cronies for backup any time soon—except one.

  Gail got up and walked over to Rosalind Fournier’s table, noting the poorly hidden looks of dismay from several individuals she passed. Reinsez’s lot, drawing their own conclusions about her conversation with their “leader” and her actions now. Fools.

  “Tell me, Dr. Smith,” Rosalind said, not bothering with a greeting and using a shooing gesture to remove her companions from the table. “Did you have any notion Earth planned to take away your precious ship?”

  “Complete surprise, Rosalind,” Gail admitted freely. “May I join you?”

  “Oh, please do. The conversation was quite dull. You’d think these people had never experienced a disruption of the chain of command before.”

  “It’s not particularly common, where we come from,” Gail reminded her.

  Rosali
nd smiled. “One forgets,” she said.

  Unlikely, Gail thought, but smiled herself “I must apologize for the inconvenience. If you like, I’ll talk to Commander Grant about your situation. He must realize you are a—disinterested third party.”

  The ’sider’s eyes glinted. “Must he?”

  “Of course,” Gail said smoothly, capturing the basket of rolls from the center of the table. “Why should you care who is in command of the Seeker, as long as you believe—” she stressed the word, “—that you’ll ultimately get what you want.” As she spoke, Gail divided the rolls between two plates. Three each. She pushed both plates into the middle of the table and waited. They were being observed, without doubt. But would the observer understand this? Gail sincerely doubted it.

  Rosalind steepled her fingers, examining the offering but not moving to touch either plate.

  Gail poured two glasses of water and put one within reach of the ’sider. She lifted hers almost to her lips before saying: “This assumes the present situation—remains stable. Are you a gambler, Rosalind?”

  Rosalind tilted her lean head, as if the angle gave her a better view of Gail’s face. “I don’t take unnecessary risks, Dr. Smith.”

  “Neither do I,” Gail said immediately. “But I do take the necessary ones.”

  The glass was in Rosalind’s hand. Gail waited.

  “This action by the Quill,” the ’sider said, staring at her glass. “It has made the situation on this ship—unstable. One hardly knows what to expect next. Alliances, promises. These now appear less than reliable.” An eyebrow rose. “I’m tempted to lock myself in my quarters until you Earthers settle things. But I doubt you’ll do so to my—satisfaction.”

  “That’s the obvious interpretation,” Gail agreed, keeping her hand and voice steady. Rosalind had to know what she offered—a personal alliance with her, not Reinsez. Not Grant. Not Earth. “It may not be entirely accurate.”

  Rosalind flashed her an enigmatic look before raising her glass and swallowing. No blame, no apologies—only what promoted survival for another day. Gail echoed the gesture with a mixture of relief and caution, aware exactly how temporary this alliance could be.