Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  And after me, she thought with a taut, hateful smile, let it come.

  She spread upon the table the reports which had occupied the committee, all the various problems with which the Council had to deal: over-breeding of azi, population stresses and economic distress among underemployed betas, turmoil in the hives, killings of greens and the lately-recovered blues by reds and golds on Cerdin. The Thon House, hive-liaisons in the place of Meth-marens, proved ineffectual: the reports skirted that fact and covered truth with verbiage.

  And, persistently, reports that reds sought out Kontrin and made gifts, trespassed boundaries, turned up in beta areas.

  There was a proposal put forward by the House of Ilit and the econbureau that this surplus be consumed by the modest ship-building industry of Pedra. It gathered support; it was very possible that it would pass. It would alleviate conditions that created discontent on several worlds.

  Moth studied it, frowning—remembered to push a button, to summon the young man waiting—and sat leaning her mouth against her curled hand and staring moodishly at the persuasive statistics on the graphs. The Hald entered; she was still pursuing her train of thought, and let him stand, the while she read and gnawed at her finger.

  At last she shifted the reports into three stacks and then into one, and put atop it a dry monograph entitled Breeding Patterns among the Hives.

  “Commercial,” she chuckled again, to the listening walls, and looked up sharply at young Tand Hald. “Kill her, you would say too. I’ve heard that Hald point of view until my ears ache. You’re nothing if not consistent. Where’s Morn?”

  Tand Hald shrugged, stared at her quite directly. “I’m sure I don’t know, Eldest.”

  “Pol with him?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know that either. Not when I left him.”

  “Where did you part with them?”

  “Meron.” He failed to flinch. The eyes remained steady. “Pol involved himself with amusements there. Morn went his own way; I went mine. No one controls them.”

  She gazed at him steadily, broke contact after a moment. “You want her taken out”

  “I give the best advice I have.”

  “Why are you so apprehensive of this one subject? Personal grudge?”

  “No. Surely your agent who watches your other agents would have turned up any personal bias in this.”

  She laughed softly at the impertinence. The youngest Hald had been with her too long, too closely. She was not diverted. “But why then? What interference has she ever attempted in Family business? She’s never made an economic ripple; she only—travels, from time to time.”

  “Is she your agent?” Tand asked, a question which had taken him live years to ask.

  “No,” Moth said very softly. “But I protect her as if she were. She is, after a remote fashion. Why do you fear her so, Tand?”

  “Because she’s atypical. And random. And a survivor. She ought to have grudges. She never exercises them…save once, but that was direct retaliation. She never pursues the old ones.”

  “Ah.”

  “Now she’s chosen a place where there’s potential for serious harm. There are Outsiders directly available; there are hives, and no one to watch her, only betas. Her going there has purpose.”

  “Do you think so? She always seems to proceed by indirection.”

  “I believe there is reason.”

  “Perhaps there is. Yet in all these years, she’s never reached back to Cerdin.”

  “It was a mistake to have let her live in the first place.”

  “The Family has searched for cause against her ever since she left Cerdin. We’ve found none; she’s given none.”

  “So she’s intelligent, and dangerous.”

  Moth laughed again, and the laughter died and she sorted absently through the reports, shifting them into disorder. “How long do majat live?”

  “Eighteen years for the average individual.” Tand seemed vaguely annoyed by this extraneity. “Longer for queens.”

  “No. How long do majat live?”

  “The hives are immortal.”

  “That is the correct answer. How long is that?”

  “They calculate—millions of years.”

  “How long have we been watching them, Tand?”

  The young man shifted his weight and his eyes went to the floor and the walls and elsewhere in his impatience. “About—six, seven hundred years.”

  “How long would a cycle take—in the lifespan of an immortal organism?”

  “What kind of cycle? Eldest, I’m afraid I don’t see what you’re aiming at.”

  “Yea. We don’t, do we? We lose our memories with death. Individually. Our records record…only what we once perceived as important, at a given hour, under given circumstances. The Drones remember…everything.”

  Tand shook his head. A sweat had broken out on his face. “I wish you would be clear, Eldest.”

  “I wish I had a long enough record at hand. Don’t you see that things have changed? No, of course not. You’re only a third of a century old yourself. I’m only six hundred and a half. And what is that? What is that experience worth? The Pact used to keep the hives out of human affairs. Now reds and golds…mingle with us, even with betas. Hives are at war…on Cerdin, Meron, Andra, Kalind… On Kalind, it’s blues and greens against red. On Andra, and Cerdin, it’s blues and greens against red and gold. On Meron, it’s blues against reds and greens, and gold is in hiding.”

  “And Istra—”

  “One can’t predict, can one?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Eldest.”

  “Until you do—spread the word among the Houses that Moth still has her faculties. That killing me would be very unwise.”

  “The matter,” Tand said tentatively, “the matter is Raen a Sul, Eldest.”

  “Yes, it is isn’t it?” Moth shook her head. Blinked. At nigh seven hundred, the brain grew unreliable, too full of information. There were syntheses which verged on prophecy, cross-connections too full of subtle intervening data. Her hands shook uncontrollably with the effort of tracing down these interloping items. Self-analysis. Of all processes, that was hardest, to know why the data interconnected. Her eyes hurt. Her hands could not feel the papers they handled. She became aware that Tand had been speaking further.

  “Go away,” she said abruptly.

  He went.

  She watched him go, without doubt now: her death was planned.

  ii

  The azi had settled finally, his world redefined. He slept as if the luxury of the upper deck staterooms were no novelty at all. Raen gathered herself up quietly, slipped past the safety web which shrouded the wide bed, and stretched, beginning now to think of departure, of the disposition of personal items scattered through the suite during the months of voyaging.

  Now there was the azi…help or burden: she had not yet decided which. She had second thoughts of her mad venture, almost changed her mind even on this morning, as often of mornings she had had doubts.

  She put it from her mind, refused to think of more than the present day; that was her solution to such thoughts, at least for the hour, at least to pass that tedious time of waiting and solitude. The voyage itself had promised to be unendurable; and it was done; there had even been moments of highest enjoyment, moments worth living, too rare to let finality turn them sour. She refused to let it happen—yawned and stretched in deliberate self-controlled luxury—went blindly to the console and keyed a double breakfast into the foodservice channel.

  A red light blinked back at her at once, Security advisement. Her pulse jolted; she keyed three, which was the channel reserved for ship’s emergencies and notices.

  MAJAT PASSENGER HAS AWAKENED. PLEASE VACATE VICINITY OF SECTOR #31.

  On schedule—alarm to the ship, none to her. She punched in communications. “This is 512. I advise you take extraordinary care in emergency in 31. This is not a Worker. Please acknowledge.”

  They did so. She
cut them off, rubbed her eyes and sought the shower, her social duty fulfilled.

  The touch of warm water and the smell of soap: some things even tile prospect of eternity could not diminish. Water slid over a body which bore only faint scars for all that was past, spare of flesh despite all her public self-indulgences. She endured heat enough to make her heart speed, generating a cloud of comfortable steam within the cabinet, combed her hair and punched the dry circulation into operation.

  Dry, combed, composed, she hauled a sheet out of storage, wound into it and ventured the chill air of the outer rooms, back to the console with a new object in mind.

  Jim’s papers were on the desk. She flicked through them, keyed in ship’s store with a few requests for display. Samples in simulacrum flashed onto the screen, accurate representation of his body-type with one and another suit. She indicated approval for several and put them on her account, selected a travelling case from the same source, along with an assortment of necessary personal items and a few of jewellery.

  Doing so amused her. She anticipated his delight. But after the screens went dark and the only pleasant necessity of the morning had been cared for, she sat still on the bench and faced the prospect of Istra itself, of other things, in a sudden dark mood which had some origin in a morning headache.

  Perhaps it was overmuch of drink the night before. She had certainly overindulged.

  Perhaps it was the azi, who had a melancholy about him which touched strongly at her own.

  She bestirred herself finally and dressed…plain, beige garments, close-fitting. And, which she had not done on the ship, she put on the sleeve-armour, which was simple ostentation. Light, jewel-toned chitin strung on the lightest of filaments, it ran from the living jewels of her right hand to her collar: the beauty of it pleased her, and the day wanted some ceremony, after such long voyaging.

  She laughed bitterly, staring back at the replacement of her fortunes, who slept, still oblivious, and thought her all-powerful. Where it regarded a ship like Andra’s Jewel, this was surely so.

  There were several cloaks among her belongings. She took out the beige one, and intended to put it on, to hide the sleeve armour, as it would hide the weapons she carried constantly when she left the stateroom. But it went back into the locker, the beige cloak; she fingered another, that was blue, white-bordered, forbidden.

  Even to have it was defiance of the Family. In almost two decades no one had worn that Colour.

  She did now, in the consciousness of isolation—quiet, furtive defiance; let some beta make inquiry, let some description and name be sent back to Council: at least let it be accurate, so that had they had missed all other signals, they might read this one, clear beyond all doubt. She shrugged it on, fastened it, looked back again at the azi.

  Jim had worked himself into the farthest corner of the large bed, into the angle of the two walls, limbs tucked, foetal position. He had done it before, also in sleep. It was somewhat disconcerting, that defensive tactic; she had thought he had relaxed beyond it.

  “Wake up:” she called sharply. “Jim. Wake up.”

  He moved, disorganised for the moment; then untucked and sat up within the webbing. He rubbed at his eyes, wincing at what was likely a headache to match hers. He looked strangely lost, as if he had misplaced something essential this morning, perhaps himself.

  He wanted time, she decided. She paid him no further attention, reckoning that the best thing. He stirred out after a moment, gathered up his clothes from the floor and went to the bath. There was long running of water, then the hum of the shower fans.

  Cleanly, Raen thought with approval. She keyed in the Operations channel and sank into a comfortable chair to wait, feet propped, listening to chatter, watching the screen with the mild interest of one who had been herself many times at the controls of a ship on station approach. The meticulous procedures and precautions of the big commercial liner were typically beta, fussy and over-cautious…but neither was putting a ship of this size into station berth a process forgiving of little errors. They would spend an amazing amount of time working in, nothing left to visual estimation.

  Channel five afforded view of their destination: this was what she had been looking to see. There was the faint dot of the station, due to grow rapidly larger over the next few hours…and Istra, a bluish disc as yet without definition. On the upper quarter screen, filtered, was beta Hydri itself, the Serpent’s Tail, a malevolent brilliance which forecast less than paradise on Istra’s surface.

  Two major continents, two ports onworld, a great deal of desert covering those two continents. The weather patterns of Istra bestowed rain in a serpentine belt, low on one continent and coastally on the other, storms breaking on an incredible mountain ridge which created wetlands coastward, and one of the most regrettable desolations of the Reach on the far side. The rainfall patterns never varied, not during all human occupancy. Such life as Istra supported before humans and majat came had never ascended to sapience…and such as dimly knew better had retreated from the vicinity of majat and humans both.

  She had deepstudied Istra, and knew it with what information the tapes had to give. It was not populous. The onworld industry was agriculture, and that was sufficient for self-support: the Family had never thought it wise to turn its most prosperous face to the Outside, The world was merely support for the station, that was the real Istra: the agglomeration of docks and warehouses swinging in orbit about Istra was the largest man-made structure in the Reach, the channel for all trade which passed in and out.

  It was a sight worth seeing if one were out this far. She meant to do so. But it was also true that facilities at this famous station were primitive and that ships other than freighters did not come here. It was actually possible to strand oneself in such a place, if she let the Jewel go.

  She went bleakly sober, staring at the screen with greater and greater conviction that she should stay aboard the Jewel, ride her home again to the heart of the Reach, where a Kontrin belonged. Other acts of irritation she had committed, but this was something of quite different aspect. She had accomplished part of her purpose simply by coming this far.

  The Family knew by now where she was; it was impossible that they had not noticed.

  An infinite lifespan, and enforced idleness, enforced uselessness, enforced solitude: it was a torment in which any variance was momentous, in which the prospect of change was paralysing. It might have taken her. The Family had planned that it should, that finally, it would take her.

  Her lips tautened in a hateful smile. She was still sane, a marginal sanity, she reckoned. That she was here—at the Edge—was a triumph of will.

  The blue light began to blink in the overhead: room service. She rose and started for the door, remembered that she had not yet clipped her gun to her belt and paused to do so.

  It was, after all, only two of the azi, bringing breakfast and the purchases from the store. She admitted them, and stood by the open door while they set breakfast on the table and laid the packages on the bench, a considerable stack of them.

  To take such a breakfast, from uncontrolled sources…was a calculated risk, a roll of the dice with advantageous odds here in the Jewel’s closed environment; but stakes all the same greater than she had hazarded in the salon. Accepting the packages was such a risk. The voyage, unguarded, among strangers, was a monumental one. Or taking an azi such as Jim: the tiny triangle tattooed under his eye was real, the serial number tattooed on his shoulder was likewise, and both faded with age as they should be; that eliminated one possibility…but not the chance that someone could have corrupted him with programs involving murder. Such risks provided daily diversion—necessary chances; one regarded them as that or went insane from the stress. One gambled. She smiled as the two bowed, their duties done; and over-tipped them extravagantly—another self-indulgence: the delight in their faces gave her vicarious pleasure. She was excited with the purchases she had made for Jim, anxious for his reaction. His melancholy was a challen
ge…simpler, perhaps, and more accessible than her own.

  “Jim,” she called, “come out here.”

  He came, half-dressed in his own uniform, his hair a little disordered, his skin still flushed from the heat of the shower. She offered the packages to him, and he was somewhat overwhelmed, it seemed, with the abundance of things.

  He sat down and looked through the smaller packages, fingered the plastic-wrapped clothing and the fine suede boots, the travelling case. One small box held a watch, a very expensive one. He touched the face of it, closed the box again and set it aside. No smile touched his face, no hint of pleasure, but rather blankness…bewilderment.

  “They ought to fit,” she said, when he failed of the happiness she had hoped for. She shrugged, defeated, finding him a greater challenge than she had thought. “Breakfast is cooling. Hurry up.”

  He came to the table then, stood waiting for her to sit down. His precise courtesy irritated her, for it was mechanical; but she said nothing, and took her place, let him adjust her chair. He sat down after, gathered up his fork after she had picked up hers, and took his first bite only after she did. He ate without once looking at her.

  Still, she persuaded herself, he was remarkably adaptable. Limited sensitivity, the betas insisted of the azi they created, what might otherwise have seemed abuses. She had not understood that when she was a child: there had been Lia, who had loved her; and she had loved Lia. But it was true that azi did not react to things in the way of born-men, and that there were, among them, no more Lias, never one that she had found.

  Genetically determined insensitivity? she wondered, staring at Jim. She refused to believe it. Kontrin geneticists had never worked in terms so ill-defined as the ego and the emotions: and, Meth-maren, she knew the labs better than most. No, there had to be specific biological changes, unless betas knew something Kontrin did not, and she refused to believe that: there had to be something, some single, simple alteration, unaided by majat.

  Less sensitivity to physical pain? She could conceive how that might be done, and it would have psychological consequences…advantageous, within limits. The biological self-destruct in-built in azi evidenced some beta expertise with gene-tampering.