Beyond the Veil of Stars

by Robert Reed

  “I want to see High Desert.” The prospect of looking at an alien world made him excited, almost giddy. “Get permission, if you’ve got to. But that’s what I want to see.”

  The screen lit up. There was a dusty gray landscape, raw and cold, stretching towards a high purplish sky. Bits of bristly vegetation grew in the low spots. The only clouds were thin. “Of course you won’t perceive colors in this exact way. Your new eyes will be sensitive to different frequencies, all of your senses changed—”

  “What?” Cornell interrupted. “Is the atmosphere thin?”

  “Yes, and oxygen-poor. There’s a scarcity of water, as you see, and the surface gravity is perhaps two-thirds of Earth’s. It’s not a small world, but it seems less dense. And there’s a lack of metals, at least locally.”

  Cornell touched the screen. “It’s not a photograph.”

  “No, it’s a computer image based on testimony and artistic renderings.” A pause. “I can generate other views, if you’d like.”

  “Go on.” Then after a few minutes, he said, “It’s almost pretty. Do you think? Stark, but handsome.”

  “I can’t express an opinion, sir.”

  “It looks like Mars, before we found out what Mars really was.” Purple skies. Desert scrub. Based on the testimony of dreamers, that’s what the old Mars had been.

  Silence.

  “Okay,” said Cornell. “Tell me about these resorts. Whatever’s on the agenda, feel free.”

  Yet the last picture lingered for a few moments, as if the computer were studying it too. As if it was struggling to make some kind of judgment about the world’s beauty. However slight; however bad. And Cornell was wondering if that’s why machines couldn’t pass through the intrusions. Maybe some were smart enough, but they were missing in other areas. Like appreciating beauty, for instance.

  Maybe they just weren’t a good enough audience.

  5

  Cornell ate dinner by himself, in his room. The TV was on but muted, full of professional and banal images. A cough syrup ad gave way to an automobile ad, then some cops-and-robbers show, automobiles flying across the wide screen and villains shot, cough syrup pouring from neat little wounds. A jarring voice startled Cornell. He blinked and straightened, realizing it was the intercom. “Are you there?” asked Jordick. “Could we talk?” he whimpered. Then he paused before asking, “Can you hear me?”

  Cornell ate the last cold bites of food, wiped his face and remained seated. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, he told himself. I don’t feel like company. Sorry.

  “I’ll try later,” Jordick promised. Or threatened.

  Cornell changed channels, finding one of the sports networks. Tall women and small men played basketball in the Coed League, the cameras conspicuously ignoring the almost empty auditorium. The game itself was threadbare but honest, blessed with an amateurish charm. He moved to bed and lay there watching the game. This could be the last ordinary thing he ever did, and he wanted to make the most out of it.

  Later, someone knocked on his door. The boom-boom jerked him out of a shallow sleep. The familiar voice asked, “Are you there?”

  Not really, no.

  The knocking continued, soft and nagging. Then came a very long pause before Jordick said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Cornell.”

  One of the basketball teams had won, running on the plastic floor with arms raised high. Good for them. Cornell fell back into sleep, waking in the early morning. The sports channel was off the air; he was getting a channel from China, apparently. Am I dreaming? he wondered. Chinese cops were chasing Chinese bad guys, the bad guys crashing into the Great Wall. Then came a commercial selling cough syrup, of all things. With a sleepy profundity, Cornell was thinking how this world was one place where once it had been countless places. One place; one identity; one soul.

  He laughed to himself, rolling over and falling asleep again.

  Jordick wasn’t in the lounge this time. There was no woman, but the inner door automatically opened. Cornell walked to his cubicle, then paused and stepped in front of Jordick’s cubicle. He knocked on the door. From inside he heard music, then a deep male voice. Nobody answered him. Tit-for-tat, probably. Which seemed only fair.

  Sitting in his own cubicle, he exchanged greetings with his tutor. Coffee was delivered, and he blew on it, then said, “So tell me about where I’m going. Tell me everything.”

  High Desert had several parallels to Earth, he learned. Both were terrestrial worlds. On both water existed as a liquid, though it was scarce on one. And both worlds had evolved vertebrates. Both had reptiles, both had mammals. Or at least lines that mirrored each other in certain basic ways. Lizards. Rodents. And such.

  “Okay,” Cornell whispered.

  “And though your senses will change, they won’t change in fundamental ways.” The female voice promised him, “You’ll have a good sense of hearing, considering the thin atmosphere. And an improved sense of smell. And in some ways, you’ll find your architecture quite ordinary—two legs and two arms and a face capable of rather human expressions—”

  “I’ll have two bodies, right?” He was recalling the virtual image.

  But the tutor said, “No.” A schematic appeared on the screen, white lines on a black background. “Vertebrates on HD reproduce asexually. It might be the harsh environment, or maybe the benefits of sexual reproduction aren’t as great as we assumed.”

  “I dated a naturalist once,” Cornell offered. “She studied whiptail lizards in the Southwest. The species has no males. Only females. And they reproduced parthenogenetically. No sperm needed, and the eggs develop into genetic duplicates of their mother. Clones, in essence.”

  “Perhaps for similar reasons.” The tutor sounded less than interested. “We don’t really know the reasons.”

  An egg formed on the black background, squiggly lines implying chromosomes. The egg split into eight identical eggs, each one growing while he watched. Seven were similar to any embryo, including gill slits and stubby limbs. But the last egg was radically different, its head swelling and absorbing most of the body. “These are based on studies of a local herbivore. Rock rats, they’re called.” A pause, then it said, “Rock rats possess up to ten mobile bodies, plus a mind that’s left inside a deep and well-protected burrow.”

  The adults resembled pikas more than rats, round and furry, verging on cute. Except for the mind, that is. It was nearly ninety percent head, helpless in appearance, its limbs upturned and resembling handles more than legs.

  “What? Is it a social organism?”

  “Not at all.”

  Cornell thought for a long moment “It’s a single organism…built from all these pieces…?”

  “Essentially, yes.” A pause. “Our staff biologists believe it’s an adaptation to the environment. Natural selection has produced mammals capable of a kind of telepathy. It’s a short-range phenomenon, but useful. Our physicists think it might be as simple as a personally generated radio signal, weak but sophisticated.”

  Cornell was breathing faster, trying to think.

  “Multibodied lifeforms can range over large areas, in all directions at once. I’m sure you can see the usefulness of it.” A pause. “Small bodies take the risks, and the mind is protected inside a deep, secure hole.”

  “How will I look?” he blurted.

  The screen changed views. Gray streets were laid out straight with simple earthen buildings set along them. It could have been a miserable hamlet in North Africa, but the voice said, “This is our headquarters on High Desert. It’s designation is HD Prime, but most call it New Reno.”

  Seven distinct dots appeared on a barren street No, he realized, watching the dots grow larger. One of them was different limbless and shaped something like a football or an enormous egg, wearing a heavy coat of fur and dust. Its longest hairs were in braids, making ropes or harnesses. And while he watched, amazed and numbed, six furred bipeds began to move, towing the hairy egg along the street, three-fingered hands holding
the harnesses and their black eyes gazing at him through transparent lids.

  “Shit,” said Cornell. “This is crazy.”

  “Yet,” his tutor replied, “you’re doing fine. I’ve had worse panic from other recruits.”

  Six bodies per human? A detached, invalid mind? All joined together—?

  “You’ll be surprised,” promised the female voice. “It’s strange to imagine, but the transformation will be easy enough.”

  Cornell couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Consider your body on earth as being one ensemble of clothes, and these bodies are another ensemble. That’s all. When you travel from world to world, you dress accordingly.”

  “I suppose,” he whispered.

  “And the soul remains within, unchanged.”

  “That,” said Cornell, “I really, truly doubt.”

  Entering the restaurant he heard his name, turned and saw Jordick sitting in a booth with another man. It was the stranger who had called to him, waving now and smiling. “Our Mr. Novak. Good to meet you.” A firm, dry handshake, then he said, “Join us. Can you?”

  Cornell obeyed.

  “I’m Hank Logan. Your field chief? Heard the name before?” He paused, then said, “Well, you will. Soon, soon.” Another quick pause. “I’m back for a little R&R, starting about ninety minutes ago. So excuse me for being a little keyed up, which is perfectly normal, believe me.”

  The booth’s leather felt warm, as if he was taking someone’s seat. Nodding at Jordick, Cornell felt a pang of guilt about last night. He asked, “How’s your training going?”

  “Been changed,” Logan called out. “Our boy here’s being stationed on High Desert.”

  Jordick gave an odd smile. “Hank happened to see my files—”

  “—and got him off the hook!” The man laughed, the sound of it puncturing the antinoise buffers. As other patrons turned to look, he said, “That’s a joke. Our poor boy here was scheduled to join up with the Cold Seas project, which is just about the biggest fucking bore you can imagine.”

  Cornell nodded, saying nothing.

  “Fish.” Jordick said the word with precision, one thin hand picking at his nose. “That’s all it is.”

  “Yeah,” said Logan, “you end up with gills and this icy metabolism. You swim and swim. All the time, and all in slow motion. Oh yeah, I saved your ass. Or asses, depending on how you look at it.”

  Jordick seemed most thankful for the attention, nodding and laughing too easily.

  “Hey, Novak. See the big folks over there? I was just telling your buddy about them.”

  It was a group like the one he’d seen earlier. Fat men and fat women were consuming huge dinners, round faces barely speaking, everyone possessed by the same compulsive agenda.

  “We call them Mayflies,” Logan continued. “Not officially. Officially they’re part of the Jupiter 3 project. A huge world, just like our Jupiter, except it’s closer to its sun. Believe it or not, Mayflies sprout wings when they pass through. They fly through storms and huge winds and past cloudlike critters, and it’s lovely, but they can’t stay for more than a couple hours. Tops.”

  “Why not?” Cornell asked.

  “Think of mayflies on earth.” Logan leaned back, leather squeaking under him. “Because they don’t live long. They lack mouths and have nothing to eat but their body fat.” He laughed and gestured at them. “See, what you are here seems to translate in the intrusions. Fat here, then fat there. Or on High Desert. But only ‘fat’ by local standards. They’re not quite as buttery up in those clouds.”

  Cornell could guess as much from the day’s lessons.

  “Like you, Cornell. You’re tall here, so you’ll be tall everywhere. Relatively speaking. What are you? Six four?”

  “Two plus, I guess.”

  “Man, I wish I was tall.” Logan’s dinner was half-eaten and cold, a raw burger showing bite marks and corn on the cob blanketed with margarine. “I bet you get along with the ladies, am I right?”

  Cornell made a neutral motion.

  “Thick is what matters, but no. No. Girls these days, they expect something they can tie in knots. Am I right?”

  Jordick tried to move the conversation back to him. “I’ll have black fur, won’t I? On High Desert?”

  Logan looked off into the distance. “Absolutely. Right down to that bald patch on the back of your mind.”

  Jordick touched his scalp.

  Logan roared, fists hitting the table. “No, you won’t. That doesn’t translate, since the locals don’t go bald.”

  Cornell glanced at the Mayflies again. “Why do they only live for a hours?”

  “We’ve got a guess,” Logan replied. “Maybe only their adults are smart as people. They come out of a larval stage, maybe from inside those living clouds, and their flying is a big mating ritual.” A huge coarse laugh. “Horny bastards. The translation gives them all these local sex hormones, and we’ve lost a couple of them to screwing. They starve to death, the poor sick bastards, and fall for a thousand miles.”

  Jordick touched Cornell on the shoulder. “We’ve visited something like three dozen worlds. Right now we’re going to five or six of them on a regular basis.”

  “Ours is best,” Logan promised. “You guys are lucky.”

  Jordick sighed and looked into the ceiling. “I can’t wait to leave.”

  Their boss shouted, “That’s the boy!”

  Cornell looked at him. A large dynamic voice, and the face couldn’t be more ordinary. He smelled of the military, and not in a reassuring way. He had a makeshift discipline wrapped tight around his nervousness, and there was a palpable strangeness underneath everything. Too much time on the front lines? But Porsche seemed like an old hand, and she wasn’t this way. Logan was two notches too loud, and he was too willing to tell secrets. Cornell was glad to know more, but the man was flaunting his knowledge, using it to impress his buck privates.

  “I can’t wait to get back,” Logan announced. He picked up the half-eaten burger, then he set it down again. “A few days, a little fun, then back to rat meat and greasewood nuts. God, I miss them already.”

  Cornell watched the ordinary face.

  “Hey, and wait till you take your first shit over there.” Logan shook his head and grinned. “Talk about wild times! You’ve got these hard little turds, not a drop of water in them, and they stink. We think they’re supposed to mark our territories for us. Like dogs do? A turd here, a turd there. And stay the fuck out!”

  Jordick took a bite of his hamburger. He had ordered the same meal, emulating his new hero. Cornell began thinking of a quiet meal in his room, free of turds.

  “We’re a close-knit bunch, I can tell you.” Logan squeaked against the leather again. “Oh, I’m in charge. Don’t forget it. But I run a loose shift. I’ve got to. That’s a whole damned world, all wilderness, and I sure can’t watch over everyone myself.” A pause. “A huge world, particularly when you’re eight inches tall.”

  Give or take, that was a single body’s height.

  Logan kept laughing until the others laughed with him, then he seemed happy.

  Cornell asked, “Why is High Desert the best post?”

  “Why?” A snort, and he said, “The scenery. The normalcy, if you like being humanoid.” He shook his head. “And I shouldn’t tell you this, not here, but we’ve got a good, good chance of making the first First Contact. With an honest to God worthwhile native, I mean.”

  “What’s a worthwhile native?” Cornell wondered aloud.

  “Tools. Technology. That kind of thing.” Logan made shapes in the air above his plate. “We’ve found spearheads, and more. Bits of refined metal? Copper. Aluminum. And there’s more than that Something big and smart, which we can feel…don’t ask me how…and just think if it happens. We make the first First Contact, the three of us do…and won’t we be something special…?”

  Jordick said, “It sounds exciting.”

  “Is. It is.” He took a deep
breath, then said, “Right now, even while we’re sitting here on our asses, the best of my best are getting closer to the answers.” A pause. “That’s what this whole operation is chasing. One intelligent, technological species, and you think people’ll give a shit about those Mayflies over there? Who’s going to matter then, do you think?”

  A couple of round faces glanced at them, suspicion interrupting the meal.

  Cornell was wondering how you could feel something big and smart, But instead of asking, he said, “I’ve met one of your people. Porsche Neal? I think she’s over there now.”

  Logan’s face tightened, then he gave a little cough. “Oh, sure. She’s one of my best, probably.” He spoke carefully, his voice flat and a little smile tacked on at the end. Meaning what?

  Cornell had lost his appetite.

  Logan broke into a laugh. “So, did you jump her?” Then he said, “Just kidding.” He kept laughing, looking at Jordick until Jordick joined in. “Christ, Novak. Have a sense of humor, would you?”

  I’m leaving, Cornell was thinking. Right now—

  “Boys,” said Logan, “I want to get back to it.”

  “I bet so,” Jordick squeaked.

  “Know something, gentlemen? Coming home gets harder and harder. For me it does.”

  Then it was Logan who left, standing and wiping his hands on the cloth napkin. He put one hand before his face, staring at it and giggling. “Five fingers. Believe me, one day you’ll be surprised to find yourself sporting five on a hand.”

  The two men watched him, wondering what odd thing he would say next.

  “You gentlemen take care,” Logan told them. “Train hard, and good luck, and I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  Jordick seemed to take solace in those words, nodding and grinning as Logan left them. And Cornell was thinking how hearing those words—“Good luck”—always picked you up a little bit. Your worst enemy could wish you luck, and there was no defense against that pleasant surge. The words had an impact, and somewhere you had to smile.