In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  He looked worn yet patient, like some mountain that had stood for millennia and wasn’t shifting any time soon. “I’ve come all this way, Gail,” he said with unexpected calm, his low voice vibrating through her hand to her arm. “I want to talk to Aaron.”

  As if she could stop him, Gail told herself, but somehow knew Malley wouldn’t go against her wishes this time. She sighed. “He’s—he’s not just Aaron any more. Can you handle that?”

  “I’ve watched. I’ve tried to understand.” His straight brows drew together thoughtfully. “I think I can sort it out, if Aaron can.”

  Gail was reminded of the fierce brilliance under that shock of standup hair and felt less alone. “Let’s go, then. Bring the box. And don’t worry about where you step. The Quill will get out of the way.”

  He looked a little startled by that, but Gail had no more time to coach him. Who knew what was still happening above?

  Chapter 99

  WINGS ... a new concept . . . something to let he/she soar up and away . . . something that would let them see what was happening in the air above . . .

  “Aaron.”

  ... he played with designs and tested them in his mind’s eye, trying for the ultimate simplicity . . .

  “Aaron.”

  Recognition . . . Love . . .

  Pardell pulled himself inward again, tightening his awareness until Susan-Quill retreated to one side, quiescent, patient, while he interacted with those that moved. As he became more himself again, Pardell gently rejected the label, careful to keep to those which belonged to his human self.

  His love . . .

  His friend?

  “Malley!” Pardell looked at the stationer. Even after a double shift, a brawl, and a night definitely not spent recovering, he hadn’t seen this much wear and tear on the man before. And blood? “You’re hurt!”

  Malley brushed self-consciously at the stains. “No. Grant bled all over me. He’s going to be okay. Tough guy.”

  Pardell had wondered when the two big men would come to blows. He winced. “You didn’t—”

  The stationer’s sudden grin transformed what had been a very grim face until now back into something Pardell recognized. “Wasn’t me—more’s the pity. There’s been another mini-revolution upstairs. Earthers can’t seem to make up their minds about anything without a scrap of some kind.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Pardell said dryly, drinking in the sight of his friend like that first cold one at Sammie’s. “Now that you’re here, what do you think of my planet?”

  Malley gave a theatrical shrug and peered over his shoulder at the light coming over the mountains. “That’s—interesting,” he decided in a very noncommittal voice. “The ground doesn’t seem to slide around, which is a relief. I wanted to see some growing things, but they’re all gone.”

  Regret . . .

  “Aaron? You with me here?”

  Pardell nodded. “Yes, I’m with you. Susan—the Quill—understood what you said about seeing the plants. She’s—sorry—so many were destroyed here. They’ll grow back in a few weeks.”

  Malley examined the brown stalks all around him with what appeared to be greater interest. “Really,” he said, and probably would have happily gone off on this tangent, Pardell decided, if Gail hadn’t rested her hand on the box sitting beside her on the ground and said:

  “It’s time.”

  Time. The human concept had beginning, duration, and end. Pardell swallowed, abruptly unsure of all of it, feeling Susan-Quill’s determination but having none of his own.

  “There has to be another way,” he heard himself say. “We can try harder—I can try harder. We didn’t harm Grant or Malley—there were survivors on the ships ...”

  Her voice was gentle but implacable. “Can Susan protect hundreds at once? Thousands? Because that’s what’s coming.” Gail’s small hand rose upward and stabbed at the sky.

  “What’s going on, Aaron?” This from Malley.

  An ally! “Releasing the other Quill will destroy Susan—her intelligence,” Pardell explained quickly.

  “And stop the Quill Effect,” Gail said mercilessly. “Something Susan herself has asked us to do—Aaron. What’s happening? Has she changed her mind? Is she afraid?”

  Peace . . . resignation . . . inevitability . . . like a soft blanket sliding over his mind.

  “Yes,” Pardell almost shouted, trying to drown out the Other. “She’s changed her mind! She wants to live! I want her to live!”

  “Why?” Malley growled, stepping closer. His eyes were blazing and hard to meet. “Why? Have you looked down at yourself lately, my friend? You’re glued into a pile of fermentables, in case you haven’t noticed. And this alien, begging her pardon, has killed a substantial number of our friends—and your parents. Seems to me, any chance to end this is worth taking.”

  “I understand . . . Aaron.” Grant’s voice was punctuated with pain-filled gasps for air. Pardell couldn’t believe the man was standing, let alone had walked from the pod to stand here. “Because ... we are ... we ...”

  Grant slumped to the ground. As Gail and Malley hurried to him, Pardell felt Susan reflecting his concern. Sympathy. “Wait!” he called out. The others froze in place, then they all watched as dozens of Quill fragments slithered up Grant’s legs and body, sliding over his wounded arm, coating the blackened flesh. Malley made a move to approach. “Wait,” Pardell said again, more gently. “She’s trying to help.”

  “Help?” the faint echo was from Grant as his eyes flickered open. The commander pushed himself up with his good arm, looking down at his now iridescent torso. “What—?” he began, then stopped. “It doesn’t hurt,” he told them, a look of astonishment crossing his face. The Earther trembled, not in pain, but with feelings Pardell couldn’t help but share through the Quill. Fulfillment. Satisfaction.

  Joy.

  “First contact,” Gail said softly. “Commander Grant, meet Susan-Quill.”

  A mass of straw rolled itself together beside Grant, and he sank into it with a bemused smile—the image of a man achieving his life’s dream.

  But his very next words weren’t the support Pardell had expected—had hoped—to hear. “Thank her, Aaron,” Grant said quietly. “I’ll never forget this. And tell her how sorry I am.”

  Pardell didn’t want to pass along the concept, but Susan-Quill was ahead of him. He lost himself in her loneliness . . . her despair . . . the longing for the touch of others of her kind. This wasn’t how she was meant to live.

  “This isn’t how I was meant to live.” Pardell heard the words coming from his mouth and couldn’t honestly say which of them, or was it both? had spoken.

  “Then I suggest we hurry, Aaron my friend,” Malley said roughly. “Because those lights in the sky aren’t stars, are they? And you know who’s in them? Syd and Amy Denery, for starters.”

  “Gail,” Pardell tasted her name, devoured her with his eyes. “You do it, please.”

  She seemed paralyzed. “Aaron—what’s going to happen to you? What if ...”

  Susan-Quill’s calm was all that let him say: “No regrets, then. That’s what you said.”

  Gail pressed her lips together in a firm line, then nodded. The sun was sending beams over the mountains now, picking gold from her hair. Without another word, she reached down and unlocked the box in four locations.

  There appeared to be a pool of dark oil in each section of the box. Gail plunged her hands deeply into two, bringing them up to show a Quill wrapped around each of her wrists, its color showing as the sunlight began to refract from its shimmering surface. As she stepped forward, arms outstretched in offering, Pardell saw Malley make a face before mirroring her actions. The stationer shuddered as the Quill touched his skin, but he didn’t pull away.

  When both of them were close enough, the Quill dropped from their wrists and squirmed into the mass around Pardell’s legs.

  Welcome . . .

  “She’s greeting them,” he told the others, blinking
away tears. He couldn’t find words for the sudden rush of joy coursing through every part of him/her/them.

  Pardell sensed a change almost instantly. The One, the Other . . . she was absorbing what was different from her, what was unique to each, from the new Quill. It was like a chord being struck, not just here, but across the entire plain, the entire planet—some rising harmony, a never-before-heard note of such surpassing beauty and passion the human in him began to attenuate, striving for a point of coherence, anything to become part of that new whole.

  Rejection . . . he was blocked, kept away, isolated like a sore from the wonder of it. Pardell had never felt such grief, such aloneness. He begged, he pleaded. Include me!

  A ghostly pressure, as though the mind behind the concept was expanding into something other than thought. Remember . . . came a whisper. Love . . .

  Then silence.

  “Aaron? Is anything happening yet? The first ship is landing.”

  Opening his eyes was a foreign act; the requisite movement of fine muscles the accomplishment of a stranger. Pardell looked outward and saw nothing, his mind filled with alien music, his thoughts unable to form anything but emptiness.

  “Aaron!”

  “Out of my way, Gail,” a deeper voice ordered.

  “Malley—No! Wait!”

  Then PAIN. . . .

  Chapter 100

  “MALLEY! Stop!” Gail’s efforts to drag the huge stationer away were about as effective as the hilltop breeze at moving the drop pods, but she tried her best, encircling his arm with both of hers and digging her heels into the brown turf. He did-n’t appear to notice, merely pulling her along as his next swipe ripped loose more and more of the grass and Quill around Aaron’s body.

  Aaron’s mouth gaped open, as if he screamed without sound. “Malley—stop!” she shouted for him. “You’re hurting him.”

  A hand on her shoulder. “No—Gail—look at the Quill!” Grant used his hold to keep standing, but his grip was reassuringly strong. The Quill had dropped from his skin.

  The Quill. They were leaving the mound, their dispersal into the surrounding soil melting away the structure almost as quickly as Malley was destroying it. The final layer of vegetation fell away from Aaron’s upper body and they all took a step back.

  “Dear God,” someone said.

  Below what the Quill had left exposed, Aaron’s clothing was transparent, the fabric’s weave remaining but most of the threads gone, as if dissolved. There were rents in various places, as though the Quill had needed larger openings to reach his skin.

  Now, those rents were boiling with Quill, tumbling out to flow down and away from Aaron. His skin seemed to bubble before her eyes. The pain on his face wasn’t being caused by Malley , Gail realized with horror, it was the Quill as they deserted their former host.

  “We’ve ships landing—no reported injuries, Dr. Smith.” The disembodied voice from Bob made her jump. She didn’t bother to reply.

  Wounds were appearing: thin, bloodless lines lengthening as they watched, as though Aaron’s skin cracked like some egg to free the imprisoned Quill. Similar fractures raced along his arms as they came clear of the straw; his hands shook with them, bits of Quill flying loose like drops of water.

  Suddenly, there were no more Quill.

  Aaron sank to his knees—a man again. The fractures closed, becoming a tracery of white where there had been gold.

  The wind played with the dead grass, tossing hair into Gail’s eyes until she pushed it behind her ear impatiently. “Aaron?” she said hesitantly.

  Her voice—or the wind—made him shiver. “I’m . . . here.” The words were faint and trembled, but wonderful. She started to move closer, hardly daring to believe it might be over and that he might be . . .

  Grant’s hand tightened on her shoulder. She’d forgotten he was there. “Careful, Gail,” he rasped. “We’ve got remote handling gear on the pod—”

  “The hell with that,” Malley said, shaking himself like some bear coming out of hibernation. The stationer reached his hand down to Aaron. “Let’s get out of here,” he said with deliberate casualness.

  Gail scarcely breathed. The ’sider stared at his friend’s hand as if he’d never seen it before—the strangest expression on his face, as though he had to think through the ramifications first.

  “You in there, Aaron?” Malley teased gently, and pushed his hand a little closer.

  Aaron lifted his right hand, ever so slowly. The stationer reached past it without hesitation, wrapping his fingers around Aaron’s wrist. Aaron’s fingers closed to echo the hold, at first lightly, then digging in so that his knuckles whitened and his fingertips pressed hard into Malley’s skin.

  The two men stayed like that, as if frozen, then Gail saw the most incredible smile spread across Aaron’s face. A cue for Malley, who heaved his friend up and out of the straw with a suddenness that could well have popped Aaron’s shoulder from its socket—but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he raised his other hand and held it out.

  To her.

  Grant gave her a little push.

  Gail didn’t know if she moved of her own will or if the look in Aaron’s eyes had the power to simply eliminate the steps between them. But, suddenly, she was there, collected in a confusion of hands, arms, and tears—one set of arms strong enough to save them all from falling.

  Much as she didn’t want to stop the celebration—and much as the wondering way Aaron’s fingers lingered on any flesh in reach endeared him to her even more—Gail knew it wasn’t quite over.

  Malley helped Grant into the Athena. As he did, she stood beside Aaron, watching the sunlight paint the plain below in yellows, browns, and green. Ships were coming down as they watched; Gail spared a moment to hope they were careful where they landed—there were signs of bustling activity around the three already findown.

  Aaron was weak, but seemed so happy to simply lean against her that she couldn’t bear to rush the moment. Besides, she had a question. Before she could ask it, he said quietly: “She’s gone—Susan. My great-grandmother. The Quill Entity. Whatever name was right.”

  “There are Quill,” Gail offered. While they now seemed shy—and, so far, no longer climbed legs or rode wrists—if she looked carefully, the telltale iridescence shone at the base of any intact stalk of grass.

  “She’s gone,” he repeated.

  “Did we do the right thing?” she asked then.

  His lips twitched. “From whose point of view?” he asked with deliberate irony.

  “From hers.”

  “Ah,” Aaron was silent a moment, then recited from memory:... It will not matter that it was a mistake. It will not matter that the Quill are blameless. In the end, it is the consequence, not the intention, by which we must judge ourselves. By which we decide our fate. And a heart can only take so much pain.

  Goodbye, Grandson. May humanity recover its dreams.

  Gail remembered the words and sighed heavily. “Susan Witts. Her last letter.”

  “How much of Susan-Quill was human?” Aaron asked, then continued: “Enough to feel as Susan Witts did at the end? To be unable to live with the death of others on her conscience? I don’t know. I do know it wasn’t enough for her to live alone, without her kind. So, yes. From her point of view, maybe it was the only thing to do.”

  He paused. “From my point of view? I’ll miss her. I never thought I would. She’s still out there, you know, tending her grass, humming emotion to distract anyone, anything, who might want to eat it. But that’s all.”

  Malley came up beside them. “Nice lighting effect,” he commented, seeming more relaxed without the presence of ominous stars overhead. Still, Gail decided, he’d done better than well. Aaron reached out his hand for his friend’s, as if still astonished he could.

  The stationer’s eyes softened, but he used the grip to tug Aaron toward the pod. “You need to get dressed in more than a blanket, my friend,” he suggested with a wink at her. “No matter what Her Ladyship th
inks.”

  Aaron actually blushed under his sunburn. Gail was afraid her face mirrored his.

  “And Grant’s moaning and groaning,” Malley continued cheerfully, as if he hadn’t noticed. “Babbling nonstop.”

  “Fever?” Gail began to hurry her steps.

  “No—court-martial. Seems he’s the only one not expecting a hero’s welcome.”

  Aaron stopped in his tracks to look at Malley. “A hero’s welcome?”

  Malley grinned. “Comm says there are more ships on their way here—and hundreds heading to the other terraformed worlds. Each and every one carrying people who owe their futures to us. Grant’s just grumbling.”

  Gail looked at Bob, still hovering in earshot, and knew. “The Patrol ships,” she said numbly. “They must have exchanged fragments and headed to the other worlds as soon as the Seeker passed along word we’d—eliminated the Quill Effect.”

  “By eliminating Susan. So they’ve gone to kill the other Quill Entities?” Aaron shut his mouth tightly, then nodded. “That was the plan all along. Your plan.” He took his hand from hers; her palm felt cold and barren.

  “I didn’t plan this, Aaron. But—” She had to be honest and, if he hated her now, Gail knew, she’d paid the highest possible price. She stood up straight. “But I would have recommended it when we got back to the Seeker. The Quill on those worlds will, as Susan, be restored to their natural state. Ending the experiment is the best we can do—for that’s what has happened here, make no mistake: an experiment with the Quill’s evolution.”

  “You could have left them intelligent—we might have found ways to communicate—”

  She cut him off. “Susan was only able to communicate through you, Aaron, and you were as unique as she was. The others? What if we could never talk to them . . . what if some were insane? Would you have them be alone? Susan told you how dreadful that was for her, how unnatural.” Gail searched his face. You know how that feels, she added to herself. “Aaron, what matters more is . . . why. Why should we force the Quill into this state? So we don’t feel alone in the universe? How is that fair to the Quill? As a species, we know they have the potential for thought—but don’t you see, that has to be Quill-thought, Quill-intelligence—not something patterned after our minds. A Quill Entity, not Susan Witts as a Quill.”