In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Pardell bit into the sweet roll someone had offered him. They were going to have to talk.

  Something that would be impossible, while the level of excitement in the lab stayed this high. Their arrival, or more precisely, the arrival of the Quill filament, had stirred everyone into action. Gail had told him she’d arranged with Grant to permit the science staff back into their quarters, vouching for them personally. From the look of things, no one had chosen to leave. Scientists and techs, most appearing to have slept in their clothes, scrambled to set up equipment and recorders. There were too many for the room, until Gail, with a look of exasperation, ordered a further expansion of the lab itself. Two walls were now inching their way deeper into the ship, with impatient researchers lining up their mobile benches to be first to fill the new space.

  “They could have done this without me,” Gail grumbled as she came back to where Pardell sat watching all the action. “This many brains in one room? There’s a guarantee no one thinks.”

  He’d tucked himself on a stool behind one of the few empty workbenches, wary of the number of people and their busyness. In Sammie’s, everyone would have watched out for him. Malley was, of course—a mountain of aggravated comfort. Pardell had seen Malley giving him one of those “how are you” looks, but this group still wasn’t large or tight enough to bother him. The Earthers didn’t know how to make a crowd.

  Gail hopped up to sit on the top of the bench, looking out over what Pardell hoped was a more organized confusion than it appeared.

  As if she’d read his thoughts, Gail observed: “We’ve been ready for this for years, Aaron. The stakes are just a little higher than any of us knew.”

  Malley hadn’t gone far—in full hover mode, Pardell thought glumly, and unlikely to grant them even an instant alone. Gail didn’t appear worried. She’d only spoken to Malley once, a cryptic: “Any problems?” and receiving a curt: “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” in return.

  Now Malley surveyed the room from his naturally higher vantage point and asked: “Who gets first crack? Your people or Grant’s?” The stasis box containing the Quill had been placed inside a larger, clear version. They’d already determined the safety of the single filament and this technology by the simple expedient of having Dafoe remove her protective suit once the Athena was in orbit.

  Pardell wouldn’t forget the frightened but determined look on the FD’s pale face any time soon. There was courage. It was also, in his opinion, completely irresponsible to risk a life simply to test the stasis box—although he knew Dafoe would argue she’d already risked it to test the suit.

  At least in this case, they had records indicating that no one had been harmed by a single Quill filament. Yet.

  They’d used remote arms to open the box and pull out the filament. It now hung over a horizontal support like some bizarre decoration or forgotten scarf, its colors glowing in the muted illumination. Gail hadn’t forgotten his comment about daylight.

  “So that’s a Quill,” Malley announced, not for the first time, and in a tone of complete disappointment.

  “No,” Gail said suddenly, her eyes fixed on the case. “Calling it a Quill, or a filament—that may be misleading.” She had the look Pardell had often seen on Malley’s face—of grappling with an idea from a new direction and following where that went. “What if it’s a fragment?”

  Malley recognized it, too. Pardell could see that in the way his friend slowly stopped frowning and glanced at the Quill. “Part of a whole,” Malley said after a moment. “Any proof of that?”

  “Aisha’s techs are running the biochemical analysis now.”

  “It acted—” Pardell couldn’t finish. He wasn’t ready to tell anyone—especially Gail—what had happened on the planet. Not when he didn’t know what it meant.

  Luckily Gail continued for him. “—It acted, the part we observed, as a unit. There was definite coordination between the fragments. How? The questions multiply as quickly as these creatures must have done.” She sounded almost happy about it, as if having new questions was more satisfying than answering the old ones.

  “You know the priority here, Dr. Smith,” Grant didn’t offer a greeting beyond this bald statement as he approached.

  Just a little closer, Betrayer, Pardell decided, coldly calculating the number of steps Grant had left to take. Then they’d see how deadly his hands could be. The destruction of the ’Mate by his friends—that Pardell could understand. What Grant had done ...?

  “Aaron.” Malley’s growl was low—pitched to his ears only. Pardell lost his focus on the Earther, coming back to himself with a start. “Remember old Logan?”

  “Mats? Of course, I remember ...” Pardell stared at Malley, then looked back at Grant, hoping he’d kept his face under some control. Mats Logan was the next best thing to a folk hero in Outward Five—a high-up in station security who’d contrived to send out warnings of coming inspections and lockdowns for years, until he’d been killed by rioters. Typical of Thromberg, Logan’s killers had been from Outward Five themselves, seeing only the target offered by authority and not the man, until it was too late. The name “logan” had become station slang for anyone who pretended to be what they weren’t, to others’ benefit.

  Grant? Pardell flicked his fingers at Malley, code for understanding. Did Gail know? he wondered, then answered his own question. She had to, or he wouldn’t be here. One thing he was sure about: Gail Smith would never cooperate under duress. She’d see the Seeker aimed at this system’s sun first.

  Rosalind liked that about her. He feared it.

  “You agreed to let me proceed in my own way, Commander Grant,” Gail was saying, in that calm voice that nonetheless had steel beneath. “It will make a profound difference to our approach—and yours—if this is a fragment.”

  “How?”

  “If, as I now suspect, we have a fragment of an organism here, rather than one organism from an collective, this implies something about the genesis of the intelligence that may exist on this world. That intelligence, I don’t need to remind you, has not been confirmed.”

  “It’s damn well likely,” Malley tossed in, unperturbed by an immediate glare from Gail.

  Grant nodded. “Fair enough. But if we confirm we’re dealing with intelligence—alien intelligence—what’s the difference between a collection of Quill together forming that intelligence and one Quill made of seemingly identical, individual parts? We still need to talk to it.”

  Still perched on the bench, Gail drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest, as if she brought a puzzle closer to examine. “One Quill. That’s the crux, don’t you see? Are there any other intelligent Quill—or just the one beneath our orbit?”

  Pardell hardly breathed, knowing Malley sent him a worried look, but not acknowledging it—too intent on what Gail was building with each word.

  “If the Quill are a collective intelligence,” she pondered aloud, “and that collective becomes deadly to us when it has enough members—let’s not forget that for an instant—then any group of Quill of the right size should be intelligent. There could be more than one intelligent entity on Pardell’s World. And every planet seeded with Quill should have one or more Quill entities.” Gail rested her chin on her knees, still staring at the Quill hanging limply in the case. “If, however, we have a situation where one fragment of Quill multiplies, becoming a whole that is intelligent as well as dangerous at a certain minimum biomass, then each planet seeded with a different fragment should have one, unique Quill entity. But there’s the third possibility—”

  Malley whistled. “That the Quill on this world only shows signs of intelligence because of its interaction with Aaron as a baby.” Then he smacked himself on the forehead. “It might not be intelligence at all—what if it’s simply reflecting something from Aaron? The image we saw could be some kind of memory, an echo ...”

  “Exactly,” Gail said, as if Malley’s insight mirrored her own. “Leaving us to ask if what happened here was unique. We cer
tainly have evidence to suggest that.”

  Pardell found himself on his feet, backing up until his back hit the wall. “I’m not evidence,” he said furiously. “I’m—I’m ...” Words failed him, and he stared at the three looking at him. Had they all forgotten? “We came here to destroy those—things.” The words came out low and hard. “I lost my ship—everything—so we could destroy them.”

  Grant looked suddenly much older and sadder. “If they are intelligent, Aaron, we can’t.”

  Chapter 72

  “WE can’t.”

  Gail watched the words hit Aaron like blows. She closed her eyes for a moment, arms tight around her knees, refusing to feel what he was feeling, refusing to allow anything but clear, analytical thought. There wasn’t time, she assured herself. He’d forgive her—maybe.

  “There’s a way to know,” she announced.

  “The other Quill,” Malley breathed.

  Fast as well as smart. Gail almost smiled. “The other Quill,” she confirmed. “We send expeditions protected by the suits to, say, four of the terraformed worlds contaminated—” she saw Grant’s frown and changed her wording, “—inhabited—by Quill. If there are signs of intelligence, that will immediately answer the question of whether the species as a whole is intelligent. Pardell’s World won’t be unique. First contact confirmed, Commander Grant.”

  “If there are no signs?” Grant countered. “What if the Quill on other worlds hide from us? There’s no guarantee—”

  “Ah,” Gail exclaimed, letting go of her legs and swinging around to better face them all. “Yes, there is. The expeditions will each return to the Seeker with a fragment for analysis. We can rig a remote arm to be fast enough to capture them, now that we know how they move. If those fragments are biochemically similar to this one, we can assume any intelligence found here should be a function of any Quill, anywhere. You can send in your specialists, wait for the aliens to make the next move, whatever procedure you like.

  “But,” she continued, “if the fragments from the other worlds are similar to each other, but not to this one—” Gail pointed at the case, “—then we have every reason to suppose what happened yesterday is an anomaly, either because the influence of humans on this Quill somehow produced intelligence, or because something else is going on. I imagine the debate on whether that constitutes first contact could rage for years.”

  “Anomaly. In other words, Dr. Smith,” Aaron said in a strangled voice. “This Quill could be a freak, just like me.”

  About to say something soothing, a lie, Gail met Aaron’s anguished eyes and remembered this was the man who’d forced her to let him face his destiny. He might be hurt by the truth—he wasn’t afraid of it. “Yes, Aaron,” she agreed. “One of a kind. Like you. An accident of—birth.”

  There was something grateful in his look back to her.

  Grant was frowning thoughtfully, like a man considering his future. “Dr. Smith. I presume you have something in mind when you specified four expeditions?”

  Gail hopped off the bench, waving to the pair she’d had waiting nearby. “In fact, Commander Grant, I do. I believe you know Dr. Quinn and Tech Stadler?” Grant nodded a curt greeting. “Despite certain—interruptions—they’ve continued with their own project, which was to prepare anti-Quill suits for the terraformed projects nearest us.”

  “So we could be ready to kill them all—in case we found a way, that is,” Stadler offered with her usual enthusiastic absence of tact.

  Gail gritted her teeth. “And these suits are ready?” she made herself ask in a normal voice.

  Quinn nodded soberly. “Yes, Dr. Smith. A pair for each of the four worlds closest to this one. As the suits used by FD Dafoe and Mr. Pardell, these are covered with a genome signature, but, rather than Susan Witts’, each of these suits bears the signature of the specific terraformer who brought a Quill with him or her.” Quinn coughed and Gail glowered at him, knowing this was her colleague’s way of reminding her she was ultimately responsible for making that identification. Not that anyone disputed her findings; no one leaped forward to confirm them either. “It is our estimation they will provide similarly effective protection from Quill, as long as they are used on the appropriate planet.” Quinn added this last in a tone suggesting anyone foolish enough to mix up the suits deserved what they got.

  “Thank you. Would you make sure the suits are packed and labeled—very clearly?”

  After the pair left, Gail smiled at Grant. “Now all we need are eight volunteers who know how to use the suits.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “Unless you are suggesting we leave orbit—which isn’t likely, Dr. Smith—there is the small detail of starships to transport them.”

  Gail looked up to where Temujin stood at the railing of the lab’s second floor. He gave her a quick nod.

  “It just so happens that I can supply three, Commander,” she told Grant briskly. “Leaving you to come up with the fourth?”

  “Really.” Both eyebrows went up, and he almost smiled. “There might be a possibility of another ship—for such an important expedition, Dr. Smith. I believe the FD cruiser Payette might be on training exercises in this region.”

  Training exercises? Gail almost shook her head, but simply said: “Good. Let’s get to it, then.”

  Gail thought she’d done it—she went so far as to congratulate herself just a little—when Grant looked at Aaron and said point-blank: “I’d like Aaron to come with me to the command sphere.”

  Her emphatic “No” came at the same instant as Aaron’s “Of course.” Both men gazed at her with comically identical expressions of surprise. “No,” Gail repeated in a more normal tone of voice. “Not until I’ve run some tests to see how visiting the planet’s surface may have affected him. Tests, I might add, that should have been run yesterday rather than leaving Aaron sitting in a hold.”

  Grant had the grace to look discomfited at this—how much for her benefit and how much for those FDs nearby, she couldn’t be sure—then nodded once. “All right. In the meantime, I’ll sort out the volunteers and see what I can do about another ship. I’m assuming your three are the patrol ships sent by Titan?”

  Before she could answer, he shook his head ruefully. “They quite properly announced their presence a while ago, Dr. Smith—but if you’ve somehow talked them into cooperating with us instead of tossing regulations and jurisdictional writs across the comms, I’m delighted. I don’t suppose you’ve still got the system you used to contact those ships ...” Gail shrugged. “ . . . I thought not. We will have to look for it, you realize.”

  “Be my guest, Commander,” she said, quite sure Temujin had immediately disassembled to innocuous spare parts whatever he and Aisha had used to send her message to Vincente. She’d been equally sure Titan U would want to protect its leading role in any discovery about the Quill—and that each patrol ship carried its representative to ensure just that. By trying to usurp that role, the First Defense Unit had neatly delivered those representatives—and their enthusiastic support—to her.

  His gesture sent two FDs fading back into the activity of the lab to start their search, although from Grant’s expression, he wasn’t hoping for much either way. “I trust I can expect a more forthcoming attitude about prepping the Athena for her return drop.”

  Did he guess? Gail carefully set her voice to exasperated. It wasn’t hard. “She’d be ready by now, if you hadn’t interfered with our procedures, Commander,” she informed him. “As it is, you’re asking my staff to work without proper rest—I’m assuming you intend to stop this ridiculous lockdown and give them normal access?”

  He didn’t quite give a direct answer. “We’ll work with your experts, Dr. Smith. As long as there are no further incidents, they can come and go to the command sphere and hangar. With escort. I appreciate that there is specialized equipment to maintain and likely more to be installed.” The noise level in the lab increased momentarily. Gail kept her curiosity firmly in check. “As long as they’re
quick,” Grant added with rare impatience. “Every minute counts.”

  “I won’t approve the suits for reuse until I’ve run my tests on Dafoe and Aaron.”

  “A diligence I find most reassuring, believe me. Just don’t delay.”

  Aaron, who’d been silent, said abruptly: “You plan to go down yourself.”

  Gail stared at Grant. “Are you?”

  “Two hours, Dr. Smith,” Grant said instead of answering. “Then we’ll be back for Aaron.” He turned and left, almost marching. Gail watched him until he reached the door.

  “Oh, he’ll be back,” Malley said, his voice plunged to its angriest depth. “He wants you, Aaron. The miracle man. The legendary Survivor. They all do—so why, Dr. Smith, did you just give Grant first crack by sending everyone else off on this wild Quill chase? What if Aaron prefers to play the market and get his best offer? Who are you to decide which faction gets hooks in him first?”

  “No one is ‘getting’ Aaron.” Gail held up one hand to hold the stationer from any more questions—there were upwards of ten people within earshot at any given moment—and turned to face the ’sider. He was leaning against the wall, a posture no longer tense but far from relaxed. “This isn’t what any of us wanted, Aaron,” she admitted. She’d been controlling her expression so long, it took conscious effort to relax and reveal anything. But she tried, hoping he could see her determination as well as hope. “But there’s no ill will here. Do you understand that?”

  His face, on the other hand, was so carefully unemotional she wanted to shake him. “What I understand, Dr. Smith, is that because the Quill can pull up plants and build a statue, thousands of people stay trapped on the stations. That is what all this means, isn’t it?”

  The truth with him, always, Gail had promised herself. She hadn’t known it would be so hard. “It could mean that,” she agreed, putting her hands on the table and leaning toward him, Malley looming beside her. It was the only privacy they had. She didn’t fool herself they weren’t being overheard. “I prefer not to work from that premise. There are other possibilities—”