The Deep Beyond: Cuckoo's Egg / Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

A long silence. “I don’t think I can really make much difference. They won’t let me bring you home; they’re going to insist you stay there; they think they woke you up too fast. They weren’t happy at all about my taking you out of there; you were on your feet and you were being reasonable—” Sagot’s mouth puckered in humor. “—but a drunk hatani’s not to argue with. Tomorrow you’ll know what to expect and you won’t argue with the meds, all right?”

  “I know. I’d still like for you to stay.”

  “Thorn—”

  “Don’t talk to Duun about it. I know he’d say no. Just do it, Sagot. I don’t trust the meds. I’ve never liked them.”

  “I’ll be there.” Sagot smoothed the heavy fabric of her kilt and rested her hands on her ankles. “Let’s talk about the weather— like atmosphere. Like the interaction of the oceans and air masses. When I was at the north pole, that was back in ‘87, I flew up there, but I went out on this exploration ship, Uffu Non was its name. Ask me about the hothonin some time—”

  ‘ “What are hothonin?”

  “It’s this kind of fish, about shonun size. They catch birds. That’s right. They have this white spot on their heads which looks like a small fast-swimming fish when they run just below the surface; a bird dives down, the hothun dives up— snap, no bird. See what assumptions do? Anyway, we put out of Eor port and headed out to sea—”

  • • •

  “He’s still sane,” Duun said. Ellud faced him, hands on knees, in the normal clutter of Ellud’s desk. Duun sat opposite, in the accustomed place. “Let’s not push it, Ellud.”

  “I’m not pushing it,” Ellud said. “Council’s pushing me. Betan’s surfaced. She’s alive.”

  Duun let his face relax in his surprise. “That’s no good news. Where?”

  “She’s in seclusion. Shbit’s got her, of course, in his house. That’s the report that’s gotten to me, via a councillor who talked to a councillor who talked with her. Don’t go in there, Duun. For the gods’ sake, don’t try it at this point. Everything’s going our way and Shbit’s got nothing but a failed agent.”

  “The bureau agents must be in Shbit’s bed if they’re sure what he hasn’t got. I don’t like their complacency. Tell them that.”

  “Stay out of it, Duun, Gods, you go after Shbit and you could blow this whole thing into the public eye again, and gods know we’ve been there too often as it is. The council’s riding even just now. The appropriations keep coming.”

  “I know when Shbit will move. Shbit doesn’t know it yet.” Duun decided on the tea and poured himself a cup. “One has to suppose he restrains Betan; but I’d rather not suppose at all. What’s the report from Gatog? Any details?”

  “They’ve got the problem solved. It turned out to be a software glitch. They took each other out.”

  Duun frowned. “I figured. False alarm, then. Dammit, Ellud. Those ears go down again and we’ll have councillors in the trees.”

  “It could be worse.”

  “Believe me, I never quite forgot that.” Duun picked up the cup with two fingers of his right hand and turned it with his left, feeling the incised design, natural clay, the costly happenstance of obu art, which was like Ellud, both clever and lacking plan. The paradoxes of the man confounded him lifelong. “I want to see the reports on Shbit. I want to know when he breathes in and how long he holds it. To the second, Ellud, tell your agents that.”

  • • •

  “. . . in 1582 the first reactor went on line in toghon province—”

  “. . . in 1582 the Dsonan League established the international council. The immediate motivation was the drought which occurs in cycles in Thogan and which in that year had created considerable hardship on the seventeen million who inhabited the region stretching from—”

  “. . . in 1593 the first satellite was launched from the Dardimuur coast—”

  (Satellite?)

  “. . . in 1698 Botan no Gelad became the first shonun into space.”

  “Sagot.” Thorn’s heart beat very fast. He looked up from his monitor at a placid, aged face. “Sagot, we’re in space.”

  “I was a little girl when Nagin walked on the moon. I remember my oldest brother coming and bringing me to the television and telling me that was the moon and shonun were walking on it. Nagin and Ghotisin and Sar. I went outside in the dark— it was spring and it was a clear night; I looked up at the moon and tried to see where they were, but of course I couldn’t. I stared and stared and my brother came out and stood beside me. ‘I’ll go up there someday,’ he said. He did. He flew all the way to Dothog and he walked on another world. He sent me a picture of him standing there in front of a sea of red dunes, you can’t tell it’s him, of course, the suit’s big and cumbersome, and the sunvisor’s down, but I know it’s him. I still have it.”

  (Machines in the dark. Things spinning.)

  (“The world’s wide, minnow, wider than you know.”)

  “Can I see it? Can I meet your brother?”

  “He’s dead. He died, oh, forty years ago. He had an equipment failure, out on the Yuon desert, on Dothog. Air ran out. I’ve got the picture, though. I’ll bring it.”

  “I’m sorry, Sagot.”

  “Child, you grieve and you get over things. I just remember my brother now, not the end of him, just the living. You know the shuttleport, just outside Dsonan? You can feel the ships take off. You can hear them when they come in, like thunder, even through the walls—”

  “Is that that sound?” (“Duun, what’s that?” “I don’t know, buildings have a lot of sounds. Mind on your business, minnow.”)

  “—about every five-day. They carry cargo up to the station, pick up what the station makes, medicines and such, and bring it back down. There’s still the Dothog base, it’s quite a little town now, all domes and connecting tunnels. All scientists. About once a year you can get a tour out from the station, but it’s horrendously expensive, the kind of thing only the rich can afford and too rough to please most of that sort, but they still have a few visitors. I’ve dreamed about it, I’d like to go, but it takes a year each way; and something always comes up. I don’t know—” Sagot looked at her hands and looked up. “I think, I think deep down I’m superstitious about it, I think my brother’s still there, still climbing about over the dunes and enjoying himself, but if I went there it’d be just a place, I’d see the town all grown up and the damn tourists and I’d go out in the desert and he wouldn’t be there. Then he’d be dead for me, really dead— oh, gods. I’m sorry, boy, the old woman talks on and on. You wanted to ask me about space.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “I’ve been up to the station. It’s a barren kind of place, all tubes and tunnels—”

  (Tunnels. Metal tunnels. Going on and on, bending up when you walk them—)

  “—and one part of it looks a lot like all the other parts. And strangely enough you don’t really get to see the stars much. You can see them from the shuttle if you get up front— they let you do that. It’s beautiful. The world’s beautiful. Haven’t you seen it in pictures?”

  (The dark globe with the fire coming over it, the spinning place—)

  “No, of course you haven’t. I’ve got this marvelous window-tape. I bought it on the station. It’s the earth from space. I think I can find a copy for you. You get to watch the sun come up over and over again round the curve of the world; you get to see all the seas and the clouds all swirled—”

  • • •

  “He’s coming round— he’s coming round. Hold the injection. He’s coming out of it.”

  “That jolted him. Something happened.”

  “Quiet. He can hear. Let’s get him out of here.”

  “Do you hear us, Thorn? Move your hand if you hear us.”

  • • •

  “Aaaaaaaaiiiiii!”

  It was his voice. Tho
rn was the one screaming. He came fighting up out of the dark, and dark was about him, stars aglow in giddy distance.

  Light blazed, white and awful; he flung himself out of bed blind and hit the wall with his back before he saw Duun in the doorway, against the dark of the hall, Duun naked from his sleep and staring at him. “Are you all right, Thorn?”

  Thorn leaned against the cold surface at his back. His limbs began to shake in aborted reaction. “I’m sorry, Duun.”

  Duun kept on staring at him. Duun’s ears were back. Thorn peeled himself off the wall. The windows were sunrise now, sun coming up over grasslands. Duun had disrupted the timer. The air-conditioner wafted grass-scent, dewy and cold, Thorn shivered again, feeling the draft on his skin. Bedclothes made a trail over the side of the bed and onto the sand, the route his flight had taken.

  “It was a nightmare,” Thorn said. “I dreamed. . . .” (Faces. Sounds.) He began to shake again. “Faces like mine, Duun— they didn’t make me up!”

  Duun said nothing. His face had that masklike look that it had when he was not going to say anything.

  “Did they?” Thorn persisted.

  “Who said they didn’t make the tapes up?”

  “Don’t do this to me, Duun!”

  “You don’t sound sleepy. You want a cup of tea, a bit to eat?”

  Thorn surrendered. Duun was being kind. Duun was leading him off again. Thorn knew the tricks. He ripped the sandy bedclothes loose and threw them down on the floor. The bed wanted turning and thumping anyway, and the blankets could use washing. Duun had left the door and left it open. Thorn pulled the bin open in the side of the riser and took out yesterday’s clothes, but it was before baths and he had to dress again before class.

  Duun was in the kitchen when he came in, setting the teapot on the riser. “Sobasi?”

  “It’s all right.” The microwave was busy. It went off and Thorn pulled the plates out and set them on the table. (Faces. Faces. The station. Ships coming and going. Dots and symbols. Chemistry. The value of pi. Numbers.) Thorn sat down and swung his legs about, crossed; Duun did the same and poured tea for himself. “I drink too much of this stuff,” Duun said, “it ruins my sleep.”

  “So do I. Duun, can we talk about it— once?”

  Duun’s ears went flat.

  “Dammit, please!”

  Duun held out the teapot to him with a bland look on his face. “One question. I’ll listen to it. Only one, Haras-hatani. You don’t have to ask it now if you want to think about it. Snap judgment’s never good.”

  Thorn took the teapot, composed his face and poured. (I hate him. I hate him. He hasn’t got a nerve in his body.) “I’ll tell you when I ask it: I don’t want you taking the first question I ask and claiming that lets you off. Have you got a lover?”

  (Got him.) Duun’s ears flicked; the eyes dilated and contracted. “Was that the nightmare?”

  “No. I’m just curious.”

  “None now. A companion for a while. I sent her off.” Duun filled his mouth and swallowed.

  “Why?”

  (Another strike. I hadn’t thought that.) “She would have wanted marriage eventually. I didn’t.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Minnow, when you started this, we were talking about one question. Is this all pertinent?”

  “You were onto me yesterday because I always take the defensive; attack sometimes, you said. I realize I do that even outside the gym. So I’m attacking. Do you think you’re old?”

  Duun grinned. “You’ll go too far pretty soon, Haras-hatani, and I’ll call this game. Do you think I’m old?”

  “What was your solution for the government?”

  “To make you hatani. Which I’ve done.”

  “Why didn’t you want me to learn about the world the way it is?”

  “You have now, haven’t you?” Duun shrugged. (Gods, not a flicker.) “It never came up; too much of Sheon and too little of the world. When we came here— two years early, and not quite my planning, I might remind you—” (Counterattack and hit.) “You were pretty badly shaken, if you’ll recall, and you knew too damn much you were unusual.” (Hit again. Gods! he’s got no mercy.) “What was I going to do? Throw the world at you in a day? Listen, minnow, I had a problem on my hands, I had a boy to bring up without newscasts, without pictures of cities, without any hint what went on outside Sheon’s woods, because any photograph with people in it was going to show a smart young lad that people all look a lot like me and none of them like you. I had to educate you without educating you, if you see the problem, because I didn’t want you to suffer with your difference. I wanted to give you a childhood, and I gave you the best one I knew: I gave you mine.”

  (He’s working on me. He’s telling the truth. What was the experiment? They’re not done with it. It’s still going on.) Thorn felt sweat gather in the folds of his knees and beneath his arms.

  “You have to admit,” Duun said, “the last two years there’s been a lot poured into your head. A lot of facts. You’ve come from the past to the present. I’ll tell you: when I started I didn’t know what your mental capacity might be, whether it was normal, you understand. I didn’t know whether I could do what I planned. I had to know that before I let anyone else set hands on you . . . whether you could be hatani. Remember Ehonin’s daughter.”

  “Why is it important— to have me be hatani?”

  “Is that your question?”

  “I told you I would say when it was my question.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you that one someday.”

  “This is my question: Why do the things they make me see have the station in them and why is the station full of people like me?”

  “That’s two questions.”

  “It’s one. A hatani ought to see the unity.”

  “Well, I’ll treat it as one. The station isn’t, it’s full of ordinary people, and I told you the truth, you’re unique. Probably the tests are making you dream in strange ways; it’s got psychological implications I’m sure the meds are interested in.”

  “The experiment’s still going on, isn’t it?” (Gods, he’s twisted me up again. Everything. Everything’s an illusion, like the windows.) “Isn’t it, Duun?”

  “That’s still another question. I’m not going to answer that. I told you I didn’t want to bring the matter through the door; I’d think you’d be glad of a place where people didn’t take your mind apart and play games with what you know.”

  “Gods, tell me where that is!”

  Duun smiled; or maybe it was the scar. “Eat. You woke me up. You can damn well eat the breakfast you made me cook.”

  • • •

  “It’s a language, Sagot. Why don’t they just tell me that?”

  “Hush. I can’t talk about it.”

  “What are they doing to me?”

  “Thorn, there’s no way I can discuss it. Please.”

  “I ache when I get out of there. I feel like someone’s taken me and twisted me inside out. I see things in my sleep. I’ve had the windows changed. It was stars. I’d wake up and not know where I was and I felt like I was falling, like the sleep-falling, only worse. It’s woods now, and sometimes Sheon’s woods in the rain, I can’t sleep without that. I wish they’d change that awful desert picture in the lab.”

  “It’s meant to be restful.”

  “There’s too much sky in it. It’s dead. I dream of a place like that and I don’t like it.”

  “I’ll ask them to change it. I’m sure they will. They really try to be good to you, you know that.”

  “They hate me.”

  “Boy, they’re professionals. They have to be cold. Their minds are busy thinking what to do and they’re like all professionals, they get to handling people just like they push their buttons and expect things to work. They forget there’s a person attached to t
hat leg and that arm because they’re looking down into their minds seeing on a different level, like how the veins and nerves run. On that level your body’s just a map with pathways going here and there, and I’m afraid they’re on those tracks without much thinking that somewhere up that network there’s a skull with a brain in it and a very anxious young man living there and watching and listening to what they’re saying to each other.”

  (Sagot, you’re redirecting. I know that trick. I’m a boy between two crafty adults and they keep me off my balance all the time. I get tired of fighting the storm. I just want to sink down and quit sometimes.)

  “I’m thinking about killing myself.”

  Panic. Sagot looked at him in shock. Thorn grinned and ached inside.

  “I was joking. You’re very good at getting me off the subject. I thought I’d do it too.”

  “Don’t joke about a thing like that, boy. I had a husband do that on me. I don’t think it’s funny at all.”

  “Don’t tell me about your husband! You’re doing it to me again! I won’t listen to you!” He flung himself off the riser and stalked across the sand, headed out. Sagot was silent behind him. He got as far as the outside door, in the room with the vase and branch; and the door was locked. He hit the switch. Hammered on the door. “Open it up! I want out of here!”

  There was no escape. Eventually he had to go back (as Sagot planned) into the room. But he sat down on the last riser and folded up his legs and studied the veins on his hands and ankles, which were distended in anger. Maps. Pathways. Sagot’s husband had probably killed himself, she was not making it up. She was sitting up there with an ungratefully rude boy sulking in front of her and he had struck at her in a hatani way. He had hit Cloen. He had hit Sagot. Both times he had perverted what he knew.

  He got up finally, and walked up and sat down in front of Sagot. “You can shout at me, Sagot. Please.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  (Hit. Deft and killing as Duun’s wit when he was crossed.) Thorn flinched inside. “Forgive me, Sagot. Sagot, don’t hate me.”

  “Wicked boy. By guile and redirection. I can tell you’re Duun’s handiwork. Back to the meds, are we?”