Encounter with Tiber [v1.0]

by By Buzz Aldrin

  Priekahm looked around wide-eyed at us, and said, “Well, you know ... I mean, I don’t agree with them, but I can understand them. Of course hanging out here in the middle of light-years of vacuum, we see that we need the support, and we understand that the thing has to go forward. But if you look at it from their viewpoint—”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “I mean, I understand wanting to just toss away the future and have fun now. But I also understand that we can’t do that. Nobody asked us, either, and we’re all giving up a lot more than any taxpayer back home. All of us have given up most of our lives to this. The adults are going to die on Setepos. We’re going to be old before we ever see Nisu again, and after just a few years of going outside again and exploring big, beautiful Setepos, we’ll have to get back inside this metal box and put in a fifty-two-year return trip—assuming Fereg Yorock and the empress keep even that much faith.”

  Priekahm shuddered and touched Mejox’s arm. “Let’s not talk about that.”

  “Sure, of course you’re right,” Mejox said. “Zahmekoses, I have an idea I’d like to talk with you about, later.”

  One of the odder things about Mejox in the last year had been his protectiveness of Priekahm; he acted as if he couldn’t bear for her to hear anything that might upset her. Odder still was that she not only accepted it, but seemed to like it. So it was no surprise that he dropped in on Otuz and me the next day, while we were working in the lab—and while Priekahm was doing remedial math with Osepok.

  “I guess what I wanted to talk about,” Mejox said, “is this whole stupid business of leaving Setepos once we’re there.”

  Otuz sighed. “It will be hard on all of us, but I’m sure it will be hardest on you. You’re practically living there already.”

  Mejox, who had never seemed to care much for study, though he was certainly bright enough, had flung himself into the study of the probe data with surprising enthusiasm. We had been getting a steady stream of information as successive generations of probes from Tiber, launched with better and better technology (so that they were lighter) and more power available for boost, had been getting to Setepos more and more quickly and reliably. Moreover, as we got closer to Setepos, radio lag grew shorter; we were now receiving signals from the probes years before scientists back home got them. Some of the gossamer probes had descended to Setepos’s surface and relayed back some pictures, and Mejox’s private chamber was literally lined with copies of those pictures, particularly the three that showed largish animals.

  “I wish that were true,” he said. “It’s so beautiful. I don’t see how I’ll even have time to look at the hundred or so places I most want to see: those strange boglands at the mouths of rivers, those wide plains, all those wet hot forests—so many strange places. And I’d like to float down one of those rivers in a boat, and take a year to do it. . . but after we’ve only been there five years, we’ve got to start back. And get old before we breathe open air again!”

  He seemed to be gasping for breath, and I think we were all about to ask what was wrong, when he suddenly jumped up and ran into the passageway. A moment later we heard his door slam.

  “What was that about? Did I hurt his feelings?” Otuz asked.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted.

  “Me either,” Otuz said.

  The next day he apologized, saying he was sorry if he had offended us, and then in the middle of apologizing he started to cry. When we tried to comfort him he ran down the corridor and slammed his door again. We went to find somebody to tell us what was going on, and we found Poiparesis in the observatory.

  “This is either a habit or a disease,” Otuz said.

  “Close but not quite right,” Poiparesis said. “He’s going into puberty. He’s a little ahead of the rest of you, but you’ll all be acting like that soon.”

  “Did you act like that?” I demanded.

  “Er, yes.”

  “And I was worse,” Kekox added, coming in. “You’ll all have to try to be nice to Mejox, and that won’t be at all easy because he’s going to be rude and unpleasant, and once puberty hits you, you’ll be just as bad.”

  Otuz was next oldest, but Priekahm was the next to go into puberty. If anything, she was worse about it, and she and Mejox seemed to rotate between rudely ignoring each other, sobbing in each other’s arms, screaming at each other, and cuddling up and talking baby-talk.

  Otuz and I couldn’t stand them, in any of their phases, and we started spending even more of our time together. Our friendship had grown so deep that it often seemed that when one of us spoke, it was to finish the other’s thought.

  We knew the adults were unhappy about Priekahm and Mejox, but, being still children ourselves, just why the adults were upset didn’t occur to us for a while. But as it happened the day that Soikenn decided to take Priekahm aside for a talk in the computer lab, we were in the rear study room, right next to it. We crept over to the door to hear what Soikenn was saying so softly and urgently to Priekahm.

  “You’re not an adult yet,” she hissed, “and you don’t have my experience. And I can tell you’ve forgotten who you are and who he is. You’re a Shulathian, Priekahm. You can’t marry him, and if he takes you as consort it will destroy his future. And the way Palathian males treat females—”

  “Mejox is not—”

  “I’m not a bigot, and I’ve worked with Palathians all my life and I like many of them, but there’s a certain amount of truth in the old saying about them being half animals. He’ll get what he wants and after that he’ll think you’re his whore, that he can have you for sex whenever he wants it. We’ve got to protect ourselves against—”

  “Like you did?” I had never heard such anger or aggression in Priekahm’s voice; she had always been the gentle, timid one among us. Now I cringed just to hear her tone.

  Soikenn gasped slightly, and then, choking with fury, she said, “Who told you?”

  “Mejox said he saw you once, and he heard the captain saying—”

  “That’s enough.” Soikenn’s voice was tight and cold with anger, but she kept her tone even. “But I’m the case that proves it, Priekahm. Poiparesis and I had been no more than colleagues to each other for a long time. Kekox gave me the impression the same was true for him and Osepok. It didn’t seem wrong, and it was certainly a relief. But in the first place, Kekox was lying to me—and even though he’d deceived me, it was me that Osepok was angry with. And ever since then—well, it’s hard to explain. Let’s say Kekox will probably never take anything I think, do, or say seriously again. And he’s about as decent as Palathians get. Most of them would have been much worse about it; at least he’s careful of everyone’s feelings. Or everyone’s except mine, anyway. And he’s never said a word in front of you children. But that’s the best you can hope for from Mejox—when he’s done he’ll treat you like a toy that used to be interesting. Is that all you want?”

  There was a crack and a soft moan; it took me an instant to realize that Priekahm had hit Soikenn. Then I heard Priekahm running down the inner deck to her room, and the door slamming.

  After a long time Soikenn sighed. The door opened, then closed very softly behind her. Finally we could stir from our hiding place.

  “Never,” Otuz said, “absolutely never.”

  “Never what?”

  “I’m never going to let them marry me to Mejox. He was always greedy and pushy, and I’m not as dumb and docile as Priekahm. They aren’t going to turn him loose on me.”

  “But then,” I stammered, “I mean, we’re going to hit puberty, too—”

  “Zahmekoses, you’re my best friend. That’s usually who people end up with, back on Nisu. If they didn’t want us to feel that way, they shouldn’t have let us spend so much time together—”

  “There isn’t much choice in a spaceship,” I pointed out. “And look, the whole idea scares me a lot. I’ve seen how crazy Mejox is and I’m not looking forward to it. And even if he is headstrong and willful, he’s my frie
nd.”

  Strange intense feelings were surging through me and my breath seemed to catch in my throat. I wanted to punch Otuz. I wanted to gather her into my arms. I wanted her to shut up and I wanted her to say—I didn’t know what.

  “He’s my friend!” I screamed. “He’s not going to act that way! And I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I know this—back home they kill Shulathian males for things like what you’re thinking about!” My breath was jammed in my throat, big as someone’s foot rammed down there, and then my feet seemed to throw me out the door and down the corridor.

  I heard Otuz calling “Zahmekoses!” after me, but I didn’t care and kept running. My room seemed like such a welcoming, friendly place, and when I flung myself into it and slammed the door, I was suddenly limp with relief. I stretched out on the bed and cried for a long time.

  After a while, Poiparesis knocked and called “Zahmekoses,” very gently and softly. I didn’t answer. He came in anyway, closed the door, and sat down on the bed beside me.

  “I didn’t ask you to come in,” I said.

  “I didn’t ask you to go into puberty,” he said. “You do know that’s what’s happening?”

  “Yes.” I lay there, trying to feel calmer, sinking facedown into my bed. “Two years of this?”

  “Around two years. Maybe you’ll come out sooner.”

  I groaned. “Well, I read all the stuff you told us to, and I think I understand it all.” I hoped he would go away.

  He didn’t. “Ah. Hard thing to bring up, you know. All of us—the adults, I mean—have been talking about, well, things. Uh . . .”

  “Otuz told you,” I said.

  “She’s sort of jealous, you know, because she’s second oldest, but she’s getting puberty late.”

  “She can have mine if she wants it.”

  Poiparesis chuckled. “The worst thing is, it doesn’t kill your sense of humor. You’re still acutely aware when you’re being ridiculous.”

  “Do you think—”

  “Not right now. And I hope to the Creator that I don’t laugh at you myself; I remember what it was like to be laughed at when I was going through it. Anyway, let me tell you what I came to tell you. Otuz told me your whole conversation, as much as she remembered, and I thought maybe a few things ought to be explained. All right?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Good. To begin at the beginning, we aren’t under Nisuan law here. The Creator alone knows what it’s going to be like when you get back— maybe there will be more tolerance, maybe less. It would really have been better for everyone if you kids had paired off the way it was planned, but there’s nothing we can do about it now, I suppose. Except hope you all outgrow it.”

  “Sure, but when I get back—”

  “You know there’s not a death penalty anymore?” he asked, as if he hadn’t been listening to me.

  “Yes, I do, but-”

  “Let me tell you something every biologist learns but nobody will say in public. Shulathians were slaves for hundreds of years. Supposedly all mixed-parent offspring were aborted or killed right after birth, right?”

  I nodded. I was suddenly realizing that Poiparesis seemed to be almost as upset as I was, and I didn’t know how to feel about that, or what was going on.

  “Well,” he said, “in all those centuries, do you suppose every baby born came out with a tag that said ‘one hundred percent pure’? Of course the two races are different in appearance, but we blend into each other—I’m sure you’ve heard Kekox mention that his older brother was called ‘Long-ears’ by everyone in the family, and that there were jokes about his mother and the family tutor? Well, chances are that he wasn’t a crossbreed—and I certainly would never suggest that he was around Kekox— but there’s a good chance that there was some crossbreeding in the family. In most families, in fact. Especially the older Palathian aristocracy, which had so many slaves for so long. It’s pretty well established that one emperor was a substitute baby.”

  “I’d heard of substitute babies, but I don’t know what they are,” I said.

  He grunted. “Simple. In the old days sometimes a Palathian line couldn’t produce an heir for one reason or another, so the male would impregnate a female slave, preferably one they thought was crossbred anyway. Then the female would go into confinement and pretend to be too ill to see people. When the baby was born they’d present it in public as their own.”

  “What happened to the female slave?”

  Poiparesis stared at me, his face hard and flat. “What do you think?”

  I shuddered. “That’s what scares me so much.”

  “It should. Never forget that even though Kekox and Osepok are just about the most kind, decent, loyal people you’ll ever meet, not every Palathian is like them. And even they—well, that doesn’t matter at the moment. The point is that yes, you have to watch out for yourself, and you have to keep your position in mind. But it’s a long time till you get back. Anything could happen in that time. And you won’t be getting sterility reversals until you’re en route back. So after a lot of extremely candid discussion among the adults—at the strong suggestion of Captain Osepok—we’ve decided to try to put our feelings aside and let you do what you think best. We won’t conceal from you that we would like to see everything settle out as it should have, and if that happens there won’t be a word of any of this back to Nisu—it will be just as if it had never happened. But if not. . . well, I think you should all do what seems best to you. It will be better, though, if we’re all allowed to pretend that we don’t know.” He got up from my bed, and I rolled over to look at him. From the way his shoulders sagged, he looked really old. He glanced back. “You’re all right?”

  “Except for being insane for the next two years, and having to worry about getting hanged when I get home, sure.” I rolled over and lay facedown on my bed. After a little while the door closed and I knew he was gone.

  * * * *

  8

  OTUZ ENTERED PUBERTY AN EIGHTH OF A YEAR LATER. BY THAT TIME IT was a great relief to me; there was someone else I could stand to be around some of the time, and she seemed to feel for me a lot of what I felt for her.

  Within days of the first time Otuz and I touched each other sexually, I could tell that Kekox hated me, but since I was mad at the world that year, it didn’t make much difference. I kind of enjoyed it. I did remember Poiparesis’s warning, though, and I tried not to do anything very physical with Otuz in front of the old Imperial Guard, especially since it seemed to me very likely that if anyone on board was going to hurt anyone else, it would be Kekox attacking a Shulathian. He had the training and it was clear he wasn’t as open-minded as he was trying to act.

  Otuz, on the other hand, seemed to want to do everything in front of Kekox all the time. After a while Osepok took her aside and pointed out that she could get me killed. We both resented Osepok for it.

  Meanwhile, although we each spent more time with the girls, Mejox and I became good friends again, because we finally had a common interest: Setepos. We spent most of our working hours in the computer lab, extracting images from the data now pouring in from all the probes ahead of us.

  Picking a landing site was getting to be more and more difficult; if you didn’t count the one at the south pole that was under ice, this new world had five continents to Nisu’s two. All of the continents had a larger area than Shulath, and the biggest—the one we called simply “Big”—dwarfed Palath. The Hook was somewhat bigger, and Bug wasn’t much smaller. There was also an enormous number of islands, and they varied much more than those of Nisu did—we guessed that there must be at least a dozen island formation processes at work, where on Nisu only two were known.

  Furthermore, because there were so many land masses separated by water, and so many wide deserts and steep mountain ranges (though none of them high by our standards), Setepos had a much larger number of semi-isolated local ecologies, and thus a far greater variety of animal life than we were used to.


  This made it all the more complicated, for our soft-landing robot probes had actually touched down at only eight sites, and unfortunately none of them were anywhere that animals passed by frequently. The two in the hot, wet, equatorial forests were hanging from the shroud lines of their parachutes, high up in the dim gloom, and saw little of the life around them except when something climbed or slithered over branches near them, or when the flying animals tried to perch on them. The probes in the deserts and mountains had simply set down too far from anything an animal would be interested in. The only exception was one that had landed on a broad plain near a riverbank in the center of the Bug; it was fine as far as it went, except that the only species of any significance around it seemed to be the immense brown-and-black horned animals who came down to the river to drink twice a day.

  “There are five more four-probe packages on their way,” Soikenn said. “We’ll get twenty more looks before we land. And we still have more than a year of deceleration and maneuvering. Plenty of time.”