Shadow World

by A. C. Crispin

  The great majority of Simiu, including, of course, the Simiu students and teachers at StarBridge Academy, liked and respected humans ... but Mark knew that some of the aliens felt very differently. Descended from or honor-bound to the Harkk'ett clan that still harbored a fifteen-year-old honor-debt against the crew of the Desiree, these Simiu bore a grudge against the human race ... and never missed a chance to express it.

  As Mark struggled for something conciliatory to say that wouldn't sound too abject, the Simiu gestured imperiously, and the little Apis took wing and joined him. Moments later both of them were gone. Mark noted with grim humor how quickly the crowd scattered to let the big alien through.

  "Eerin, there's got to be some way to get this baby to stop crying!" Behind Mark, Cara sounded frustrated to the point of exasperation.

  Mark went back to his friends. Eerin, looking ruffled and dejected, stood by the couch where Cara sat. Hin made a helpless gesture. "Hin is sad to tell Cara," the Elpind said in careful English. "The hinsi will die."

  "Why?" Mark demanded, shaken. "What do you mean?"

  Eerin regarded him steadily. "Nursing Elpind infants must eat every few hours or they will soon weaken and die."

  Cara shook her head impatiently. "Eerin, surely there's something we can fix for them as a substitute formula! Just to keep them alive until help comes. I mean, what do Elspind do if the father sickens and can't nurse, for instance?"

  "Parents often prepare supplement feedings," the Elpind admitted. "They are kept for the father to use if his feeding gland becomes infected, or if a nonnursing heen must feed the child in his absence."

  "Okay, so look and see if these two fathers brought any with them." She nodded at the hijackers. Mark saw that Terris' father was now dead, which came as no surprise, but still saddened him.

  Eerin dropped down and began going through the pockets of the dead hijackers. A moment later the Elpind straightened again. "Supplements!" hin announced triumphantly, holding

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  up a large handful of thin, tubular objects, bright green in color.

  "Okay!" Mark said, immensely relieved. "Go ahead and give Terris one of them. You know how, don't you?"

  "Yes," Eerin said slowly. "But there is something else. A nursing infant will not accept food from other than a heen. If a father dies before a child has completed nursing, the child must be given quickly to a family, a pinlaa, that has a nursing male."

  "But ... both heen are dead," Cara said. "You mean that unless we can find another heen to give Terris the food, hinsi won't take it?" She glanced quickly at Mark, her skepticism plain. He couldn't blame her for doubting Eerin ... it sounded crazy to him, too.

  Eerin nodded bleakly. "Hin is afraid that is true. Hinsi will not accept nourishment from females or neuters. They become upset and stop eating, sometimes refusing to begin eating again, if they are separated for any appreciable length of time from a heen. In our lifecycle the chemistry of a hinsi is linked to that of a male."

  "But only for a few days ..." Mark began.

  Eerin shook hin's head sorrowfully. "Elpind infants' metabolisms are"-- hin searched for the English word, gave up and used the Mizari--"are genetically programmed to interact with the metabolism of a heen." Hin sighed. "Babies whose fathers die must be given to a heen if they are to survive, and from that time on, the child is a member of the new family. Hin lost hin's youngest sibling in just that way."

  "Oh, shit ..." Mark muttered, and leaned over to stroke the sobbing baby in Cara's arms. The moment he touched the child, Terris quivered all over, half turned on Cara's shoulder, then stiffened and positively leaped across the small space between the two humans.

  "Umph!" Mark sat back on the couch, reflexively reaching up to catch and hold the baby, but Terris was already attached to the student's coverall like a burr, hinsi's sharp little nails piercing the material. Mark could feel them pricking his skin lightly. With one last, loud sniffle, Terris burrowed hinsi's head against Mark's chest. Blessed silence ensued.

  "Well ... damn!" the young man whispered, in awe, not

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  anger. He stared down at the baby, his mouth half-open with surprise, then reached up to stroke hinsi. Terris' big eyes closed contentedly. Mark found himself grinning foolishly. "I think I've just been adopted," he said.

  "Mark is correct," Eerin said, hin's golden eyes beginning to shine again.

  "Apparently Mark being male is enough to satisfy Terris ... it does not matter to hinsi that Mark is not Elpind. It is hard to believe ... but, under the circumstances, extremely fortunate. Now Terris may live, if hinsi will take food from Mark."

  "Lucky for Terris," Cara said softly, a shadow crossing her face as she looked down at the unconscious Misir. "Mark, try feeding hinsi."

  The Elpind snapped the end off one of the supplement tubes, and thick grayish liquid oozed out of the tip and down the straw. Mark took it and touched the oozing tip to Terris' mouth. The baby looked at him, seeming puzzled, with those huge eyes. "Come on, Terris," he coaxed softly. "You'll like this stuff."

  Terris twisted hinsi's head away.

  "It's all right," Mark soothed. "C'mon ..." He stroked the baby's silky back with one hand, offering the straw with the other. "Eat something, Terris." You have to, Terris, he added silently. I can't stand any more death! Please!

  A long sandpaper tongue, a miniature of Eerin's, emerged cautiously from the baby's mouth and touched the gray slime that oozed from the straw.

  "That's right!" Mark urged. "Come on, Terris."

  Suddenly Mark felt the straw tug in his fingers as the baby pulled the first inch of the straw into hinsi's mouth. Hinsi began sucking eagerly, little orange cheeks going in and out as the baby rapidly emptied the feeding straw.

  "Attakid, Terris!" Mark cried, beaming, and Cara grabbed his arm and squeezed it, echoing his smile.

  "Retribution," someone said flatly.

  Startled, Mark looked up. The man who'd attacked Eerin was conscious again. The student watched him warily as he climbed to his feet, all the while glaring at the feeding Elpind baby.

  "That's what murderers ought to get. Retribution. Not

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  dinner!" Hatred filled his eyes. Mark tensed, ready to shove Terris into Cara's arms and defend Eerin and the children if the man caused further trouble.

  But Cara beat him to it. Quickly handing Misir to Eerin, she leaped up to confront the man, her back stiff with outrage. "I think you'd better leave," she said coldly. "Eerin is not one of the hijackers, and these babies are not murderers."

  The man pointed at the babies. "Murderers' spawn," he mumbled. "Same difference."

  Cara shook her head. "You know better than that." Her voice was firm.

  "Listen, we're very sorry about your family, but that's no excuse for attacking innocent people! Now I think you'd just better go away and get hold of yourself."

  "There will be retribution," the man insisted, but somewhat to Mark's surprise, he began shuffling away. He watched them, and they watched him, all the way out of the lounge, until he climbed down over the broken edge onto the desert floor outside and disappeared.

  "Oh, Mark ..." Cara sank back onto the couch.

  Mark let out his breath. "Remind me to call you the next time I'm in trouble."

  Then he added sincerely, "No, I mean it, Cara. That was damn good."

  She shook her head. "Lucky, that's all. What do you think he means by that retribution stuff? Do you think he'll try something?"

  "He's crazy with grief right now. Let's just keep the babies ... and you, too, Eerin," he added, nodding at the Elpind, "as far away as possible from him, for the moment. He'll snap out of it." He looked down at Terris. Still clinging tightly to Mark's coverall, the baby had fallen asleep with the empty straw dangling from hinsi's mouth. Mark drew it out gently.

  "Here are some more," called a voice from outside the lounge. A tall, blond woman peered at them through the rent in the ship's side. "Some guy named Reyvinik is ca
lling a meeting. Outside, up front, in a few minutes. There's a giant rock ..."

  "I know which one," Mark said grimly. "We'll be there."

  Sixty-three people, including the two Wopind infants, survived the crash of the Asimov. Only two of the ship's crew were

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  among those sixty-three, and they were among the twenty-four who were injured, several critically. Seventeen of the survivors were children, many of whom had lost the parent or parents they were traveling with.

  These were the grim statistics reported by the person who'd assumed the leadership role. He identified himself as Jorge Reyvinik, chairman of the largest plastic compounds conglomerate on Earth. With iron-gray hair and a severely trimmed beard, piercing black eyes and a commanding manner, he looked every bit the powerful executive.

  Mark remembered seeing him at the party on Captain's Night, but after the hijacking, Reyvinik hadn't been in the common lounge where the terrorists kept their "select" group. He must not have been taken out of hibernation, or else they kept him in one of the smaller lounges with the other nonhibernating passengers, Mark decided.

  The meeting was emotional. Some of the survivors wept; some babbled; almost all asked questions of Reyvinik as if he were an official flown in to offer direction, not just another passenger who'd crashed with them.

  "Will rescuers be looking for us?" was the question most urgently asked.

  "I doubt it," Mark called, speaking up for the first time. Everyone turned to him, and he rose to his feet from where he'd been sitting on the ground.

  Exhaustion was taking its toll; he felt as though he'd been awake for a year, and it was a challenge for him simply to stand up. "Mark Kenner, from StarBridge Academy," he introduced himself. "I was the one the Wospind picked to negotiate for them, and as a result, I was on the bridge when the ship started to go down."

  "Can you come up and tell us what happened?" Reyvinik called, beckoning.

  Wearily Mark walked to the front of the group. Resolutely, he kept his eyes from the smashed, folded- under nose of the Asimov as he began relating what had happened those last few minutes. As he spoke, he realized that Cara had moved closer and was filming him.

  When he'd finished, Mark sat back down, hearing the crowd murmur until Reyvinik raised his hand for quiet. "So now we know," the older man said.

  "Communications were destroyed first, so it's probable that no one knows where we are--or

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  even that we've crashed. Simply waiting could be suicide; it appears to me that we've got to actively seek help."

  Mark nodded. Reyvinik had cut through to the heart of it. "The question is,"

  the executive said, "where we ought to look for that help. Has anyone ever--"

  He paused as Mark waved for his attention. "I was there when one of the hijackers died," he began, "and he gave me and Eerin"--he pointed to his pair partner--"this--" Mark broke off as he heard the sudden chorus of fearful exclamations. "Look!" "It's one of them! " "A terrorist--I thought they were all dead!"

  "They are all dead," Mark said firmly. "Eerin is my pair partner, and we were sent out from StarBridge together, en route to Berytin. It was pure coincidence that Eerin was on board when the hijackers took over the Asimov."

  Cara spoke up. "I can verify that. I left StarBridge with both Mark and Eerin."

  The gold sensor patch and her autocam gave her an air of authority. The suspicious, angry murmurs quieted.

  "I met Eerin on Captain's Night," Reyvinik said firmly. "And I also can attest that Mr. Kenner is telling the truth. Go on, please." This last was addressed to Mark.

  "Anyway, this dying hijacker asked me and Eerin to take his child"--Mark pointed to Terris, clinging to his coverall and fast asleep--"to a nearby settlement. To help us get there, he gave us a plotter map."

  Reyvinik leaned over, and Mark handed the little instrument up to him. The executive studied it, frowning, checking their location, then listening intently while Mark summarized the information the dying Wopind had given them.

  "I think the injured, any elderly or handicapped, and the children need to stay here for now, with enough people to care for them," said Reyvinik firmly, "but we must send out at least two teams to try and reach these settlements on the map."

  "But the main water tank was ruptured," one elderly man spoke up. "All we have is the auxiliary tank to depend on. What if the ones who stay behind run out?"

  "If our supplies run low, we can consider moving into the mountains and leaving a trail so rescuers can locate us," Reyvinik said. "But let's hope we don't have to try and cross the desert with the injured and children."

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  "I'll volunteer to lead a team," a Heeyoon survivor said. "My home is near a desert; they are not unknown to me."

  "Good," Reyvinik said. "Anyone else? We should send out a couple of teams toward these settlements. On foot it'll take several days to get to any one of them."

  Mark looked over at Eerin and spoke quietly. "When the teams reach these settlements, will the Elspind be able to contact the CLS to tell them what's happened?"

  Hin nodded. "Yes. Some villages have CLS researchers stationed there, as part of the sociological program, and they have communications devices, of course. But even the villages that have no CLS researchers can pass messages quickly, either by our system of messenger runners, or, over very long distances, by releasing trained messenger birds. Hin's people will do everything possible to help."

  Reyvinik called for agreement to his proposal and got it.

  "We'll send a team to each of the two largest settlements that are within reasonable walking distance," he decided. "Once we have both team leaders, I want each of them to choose their own group from volunteers."

  "I'll lead a team," said a middle-aged woman. "I'm an archaeologist, and I've spent a lot of time in desert climates." She looked over at Eerin. "Maybe Eerin can give me some background on Elseemar's flora and fauna."

  "That is a good idea," said the other, Heeyoon, team leader.

  Mark wasn't listening, however. Reyvinik's phrase, "the two largest settlements," had given him pause. "Wait a minute," he said, waving his hand. "Mr. Reyvinik ... wait a minute!"

  "Yes, Mr. Kenner?"

  "Those two largest settlements ... they're Wospind enclaves," Mark said.

  "The hijacker told us so. They're the last places off-worlders should be heading on Elseemar."

  Eerin was nodding agreement. "To walk to the nahah would be much safer.

  The people there are Elspind, and they will help."

  Reyvinik looked at them, then slowly shook his head. "You can't be sure that hijacker told you the truth, Mr. Kenner. The nahah is probably the Wospind enclave, and he told you to go

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  there so that his child would be raised by his own people."

  Jorge's mouth tightened as he deliberately glanced at the wreckage of the Asimov. "Remember, these people were willing to die for their beliefs; it seems reasonable to me that they wouldn't have any compunction about lying for them."

  A chorus of "That's right!" and "Of course he was lying!" and "You can't believe a terrorist!" followed the older man's declaration.

  "I'm sure the hijacker was telling the truth!" Mark protested. "He swore he was! Dammit, the Wopind was dying and all he wanted was for his child to live. He wasn't plotting against us on his deathbed!"

  One black man glared at Mark, shaking his head. "Don't be naive, Kenner,"

  he said sarcastically. "That guy would've said anything to get you to take his kid where he wanted it to go. Besides"--he gave Eerin a hard look--"I still think it's a pretty farfetched coincidence that old Eerin here just happened to be on the ship that the Wospind decided to hijack."

  "According to the map, we can reach the nahah two to three days before we'd get to any of these settlements," Mark pointed out. "It's crazy not to go there." He gave the group a hard look of his own. "Don't forget, time is survival."

  "You're crazy to li
sten to a terrorist" was the response from several sources.

  "They are people without civilized ethics, by definition," said a Chhhh-kk-tu.

  "You cannot expect truth from them."

  "He lied so you would take his child back to its own people," said a woman with a baby of her own in her arms.

  "Hell, that's what I'd do," said the black man. Heads nodded all around the ragged circle.

  Reyvinik looked at Mark. "Frankly, I'd consider it a higher duty, if I were leaving a helpless child behind, to provide for the child. Whatever I had to do!"

  "I want to be found, but not by them" said another survivor. "Alien fanatics!

  They'd probably kill us on sight."

  Reyvinik listened carefully until the group ran down. "Does anyone else have anything else to offer?"

  "Hin's people are not liars," Eerin spoke up for the first time, loud and firm.

  "Hin is ashamed of what the Wospind did, and hin apologizes for their actions ... but hin still believes that

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  the Wopind hijacker spoke the truth today. The nahah is the best

  destination."

  "The Elpind is correct," said a loud, harsh voice. It was the big, ruddy Simiu.

  "Elspind are a truthful people, much the same as my own." The big alien glared at the black man. "Humans, of course, can comprehend little of such honor, but I assure you that it exists in this culture. The hijacker was undoubtedly telling the truth."

  The black man's lips tightened, but he remained silent.

  Reyvinik chose not to acknowledge the Simiu's insult. He gazed off at the hazy rim of mountains for several minutes, then finally spoke again. "There are good arguments on both sides, and it's a risk either way. I suggest a compromise. Mr. Kenner, will you volunteer to lead a third party to the nahah? That way we'll have covered all the bases."

  "All right," Mark said steadily.

  Quickly the three leaders chose teams. Mark, of course, selected Eerin and Cara. Then the Elpind gave the Heeyoon and the archaeologist an

  accelerated course in Elpind plants and animals.