Beyond Heaven's River

by Greg Bear

  It would take some time for his hair to grow out, he decided as he looked at the bathroom mirror. He rubbed his scalp, and the mirror flashed a question mark in one corner. He ignored it. While he figured out how to use the urinal, a voice asked what he wanted. He looked at the walls but said nothing as he used the facilities. They were relatively easy to understand. One of the fixtures looked obscene—an obvious phallus and less obvious but identifiable female genitalia formed in plastic and mounted on a smooth black cylinder next to the washbasin. Above the basin, next to the mirror, was a black cube with many little doors outlined on its surfaces. He looked at himself in the mirror, and again it flashed a question mark.

  “Do you desire scalp massage?” the voice asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Does your hair need treatment?”

  He shook his head. “Needs to grow.”

  “This machine will adjust style by request.” The black cube turned red, then went back to black. He wasn’t ready to take that kind of risk. He refused as politely as he could—there might, after all, be an actual human somewhere behind the walls—and put on the pants and robe. The pants shrunk appreciably until they weren’t baggy, just comfortably loose. The robe adjusted in a similar fashion. Looking in the mirror, bare chest peeking out between the lapels of the robe, he thought he had made a good compromise.

  If this was his cabin, he was much better off than he’d been in the bunkroom aboard the Hiryu. He frowned and picked up his armor, adjusting it and sticking it into the closet, where something invisible held it in place. His clothing was ragged, so he left it out to be mended or thrown way.

  “Ko,” he said, looking around the cabin. “Where are you?” He smiled and nodded at the opposite wall. “It is good of you to come with me. In a while, we will talk. But now they wait.” His face sagged into a frown. “So many years, and now there are others, real people. So strange. I think much has changed, and I may never know how much. What? Yes, nothing will be the same now. The kami have left in anger and shame, they will not return. We deserve our confusion. Now hide again. I will call the woman and go with her.”

  He went to the door and opened it. “I am ready,” he said.

  Anna looked over his clothing and nodded appreciatively. “Not bad.” She stepped through the door and looked around the cabin. “Are you ready to meet someone who actually speaks Japanese? She doesn’t even need a tapas. I’ll introduce you.”

  “Is it common tongue?” he asked.

  “No, not exactly.”

  “Then I speak English when possible.”

  “That’ll disappoint our linguist. She knows forty old human languages, and she likes to practice. But you know best.”

  “I know Chinese, Tagalog, and some Malay,” he said. “Are those common?”

  “Chinese is spoken widely but probably not as you remember it. Better stick with English for the time being. Your accent isn’t too thick to penetrate, and English hasn’t changed much in grammar and syntax since it was standardized, about a century and a half after you—” She lifted her hand. “After whatever happened.”

  “I will tell,” he said. “But first I need food, and a tour.”

  “By all means,” she said. “If you’ll be patient, we’ll take you up to the big ship. With permission, of course.”

  “Up?” he asked. He pointed his finger meekly.

  “To orbit. To a warper ship—a space vessel.”

  “Space,” he repeated. “This is a ship for space?”

  Nestor nodded. “We have a lot to explain, I can see that.”

  “This is not the Earth?” He had suspected as much, but now he wanted to be sure.

  She shook her head gently. “Earth is very, very far away.”

  “Then I am glad,” he said. “Have not lost as much as was thought.”

  “If you’re ready, a few of my friends would like to meet you.”

  “Ones with fur and bright clothes?”

  “No, not right now. You can meet them later if you want. I have a first officer who’s very good at history. She tells me you were dressed as a samurai warrior, but that you’re not from that time period. You’ve made us all very curious.”

  “Will speak for exchange,” Kawashita said, his lips thinning with determination. “You will tell and let me read all I have to know about this.” He gestured vaguely at the bulkheads.

  “Of course. In a few days you’ll get to talk to people from the Centrum. They’ll probably assign someone to look after your welfare. If you wish, you can leave with them. But for the moment you’re welcome here.”

  “First, food.”

  “Come along.” Nestor opened the door and he stepped cautiously into the corridor, which circled the periphery of the lander. She stood him on a black spot beneath a hole and told him to keep his arms down. They were lifted gently to the next level. Yoshio reflexively clutched at the passing walls, sucking in his breath through his teeth. Anna touched his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said.

  They stepped out of the lift field. Walking away from the periphery—Yoshio tried to orient himself, and decided they were moving toward the center of the ship—they came to a small cabin with two round tables. Four pearl-like spheres, each about forty centimeters wide, hung without apparent support just beneath the ceiling. A bright, lively painting of a strange jungle covered one wall. At least, Yoshio mused, it wasn’t a photograph—it was three-dimensional, very detailed, and seemed in constant motion.

  “What would you like to eat?” Anna asked. She pointed to a square in the table nearest them. He sat down and looked into the square. Pictures of food flashed past, and hints of odor, as well as taste. He backed away, sucked in his breath—“Hht!”—then leaned forward more slowly. Some of the tastes were unfamiliar, even unpleasant.

  “You can look at it again if you want, just ask for a rerun.”

  “Yes,” Yoshio said. “Again, please.” The menu passed again. He settled for what looked like a plate of fish and reasonably unaltered vegetables. He then chose a drink very close to beer, and ignored a list of supplementary nourishment. “What is the third list for?” he asked.

  “Some of my crew have religious regimens which require special diets to be effective,” she said. “Some are on selective starvation diets, others modified intoxicants, and that means they need periodic supplements to keep them healthy.” She pointed to the tapas, which had been silent for the past few minutes, and asked if he needed translation any longer.

  He shook his head. “I would rather hear people speak and understand. Explain odd words to me, or give me dictionary.”

  “Here.” She handed over the tapas. He hefted the device and looked at its pale gray screen. It fit easily into the palm of his hand. “Simply punch these three buttons in sequence and speak an unfamiliar word into the face. The screen will give a written translation in Japanese.”

  While he tested the pad, his food drifted down from an opening in one of the spheres and his drink rose up from the table, glass and all. He tasted the beer and smiled slightly. “It is like San Miguel,” he said. “Philippines beer.”

  “We try,” Anna said. “If that means it’s good.”

  “Yes,” Yoshio said.

  Anna leaned back in the chair as he ate. “Would you like to know what you’re eating? Might be a good place to start asking questions.”

  Kawashita held a bite of food in mid-air and looked at it suspiciously. “This is not fish?” he asked.

  “We don’t kill animals for food anymore. It’s generically known as synthecarn. It’s artificial, but I doubt you can tell the difference. Some of us object to it because it looks like dead animal flesh, but that’s a pretty fine distinction. The vegetables are cloned products grown in a few seconds in special containers. Most of what you’re eating was a liquid nutrient solution a few minutes ago, and reclaimed waste pr
oducts before that.”

  “The future is not appetizing,” Kawashita said. But he took a bite of the fish and decided it was acceptable. “And the beer?”

  “Artificial. I’m not sure how it’s produced.”

  “Do people anywhere eat things as I once did?”

  “Probably. There are quite a few colony worlds where people have chosen to go back to old ways—maybe five or six thousand. But most are more rational. This is much more efficient, and just as satisfactory to anyone but a zealot.”

  Kawashita took the pad and said, “Cloned.” Writing appeared and continued for several minutes, moving at an easy pace across the tapas screen. “I will not need a library with this,” he said.

  “It is a library. Don’t get too dependent on it, though. We have a clinical name for people who can’t stay away from a tapas.”

  “Tapas,” Kawashita said to himself. “In Sanskrit it means heat.”

  “We get it from a MitelAllemain root. MitelAllemain—”

  “Middle German,” Kawashita translated.

  “Yes. It’s a language used on colony worlds with mixes of French-, German-, and English-speaking peoples. There’s another form called PlatAllemain, which has Spanish and Russian influences, and a third called Soyuvet, which is mostly Russian and a few other Slavic tongues. But they’re not standard. Centrum English and Demotiki—that’s mostly Greek, I think—are quite common. Most people are willing to speak English, unless you’re in political situations where native tongues are important. You seem to be a natural—knowing Sanskrit, translating quasi-French and German.”

  “Many years of study when let alone, when let to read. I know only bits and fragments. You seem to have easy ways to learn languages, however. Could I be taught?” He was almost finished with his meal.

  “I don’t see why not. Would you like to meet the others now?”

  “First, a tour,” he said.

  “Fine.” She smiled broadly. “You’re a hard bargainer.”

  Four

  Elvox had requested historical records from the orbiting United Stars ship. Displaying them rapidly and running an automatic search, he found no listing for a terrestrial citizen named Yoshio Kawashita. But the records were incomplete before 1990. He shrugged and handed the display tapas to his second-in-command, a heavyset unterloytnant, Lawrence Tivvers. Tivvers replayed the search and agreed with the negative results.

  “I don’t think they’ll coerce him,” Elvox said. “We could prove illegal persuasion in any judgment dispute. But he’s open game for any kind of persuasion. He’s naive.”

  “All this is on the fringes of the law,” Tivvers said, clearing the outside view ports to see the woman’s shuttle and the dome. “But it’s pretty clear, even so. He’s inherited the planet.”

  “And we can’t investigate a damned thing unless he gives us permission.”

  Tivvers punched up their work schedule and began to revise it. “I think we’re going to have to freeze everything until the Centrum ship gets here.” The Centrum oversaw the actions of mercantile consolidations like United Stars, and mediated when disputes arose. “USC won’t like us taking chances with a punitive decision.”

  “Larry, I blew my chances for a promotion out there.”

  “How? By not taking him in? That may work against her.”

  “She’s too smart to do anything that will work against her. But she’s getting friendly with him, and we’re out in the cold.”

  “Wait until the Centrum arrives. We’ll get our orders from the CO next accession, ten minutes from now—patience!”

  Elvox rubbed his face. “She stepped right in, no weaknesses, no doubts. She swept him away like a storm. I didn’t have a chance to think.”

  Tivvers acknowledged a beep on the intercom.

  “Sir, this is Ruysmal. We’re ready to examine the dome.”

  “Hold off on that,” Elvox said. “We’re going to sit tight for a while.” He slapped his palm on a panel and stood. “That’s timid, isn’t it? Would she be timid?”

  Tivvers looked at him, a faint grin surfacing.

  “She wouldn’t be timid, would she?”

  “Hell, no. She’s Anna Nestor.”

  “She’s no older than I am, no more experienced.”

  “No,” Tivvers mused, “not in this sort of thing, maybe.”

  “You believe all those stories about her?”

  Tivvers’ grin was open now.

  “She’s something to go up against, you know that? If we sit tight, she’s going to run circles around us.”

  “You’re not thinking about taking chances, are you?”

  “How did the CO get his command?”

  Tivvers shook his head. “Julio, that was thirty years ago, things were different. The Centrum controls the show now. No consolidation dares go up against the Centrum—not when every other consolidation will jump all over its ass. This is a time of honor and decorum.”

  Elvox made a rude noise, then punched up the cargo lock. “Ruysmal, get your team out to the dome and go over it with every detector we have. Don’t disturb anything, but find out everything you can.” He squeezed past Tivvers and took the ladder to the next deck, his voice rising up the shaft. “She can’t refuse to let me see him. They’ll say she was holding him out of communication. She has to let me talk to him.”

  “Julio, before we do anything, let’s at least see what the legal advisers have to say.”

  The sound of Elvox’s steps on the ladder stopped. “Okay. But make it quick. I’m getting a pack ready.”

  Five

  Elvox crossed the field, rehearsing what he would say and how he would behave. Anna Nestor was an imposing figure, but this was too important to allow himself to be cowed. As he neared her shuttle, Tivvers told him by radio that the legal advisers concurred.

  “Good,” he breathed. “Now I hope the CO goes along with me, too.”

  “He will, if you succeed,” Tivvers said.

  “Succeed at what? I’m not even sure what I’m after.”

  “Influence, sir. Make him think we’re friendly, too. We can help.”

  “Clear enough.” He closed the channel and opened another to talk with Nestor’s shuttle. His environment merged with the bubble around the base of the lander.

  “Can we help you?”

  He looked up and saw a tecto alter standing in the cargo-lock hatch. Nestor seemed to have a fair number of alters in her entourage. Usually, alters chose to stay with their own kind—in societies of less than a thousand, since there were seldom more than that number of any particular type. Elvox didn’t approve of adaptive breeding and tectonogenetics programs, personally, but USC did, and he was loyal to USC. “I’d like to speak to Anna Nestor.”

  “And you’re”—the alter consulted a tapas—“Loytnant Elvox, correct?”

  He nodded. The alter stepped back into the lock, leaving Elvox to rub his hands at the base of the ramp.

  “Loytnant Elvox,” Nestor’s voice ran out from the outside speaker. “Come aboard, and be welcome.”

  “Thank you,” he murmured.

  The alter took him to the lander’s bridge. Nestor and several others were giving Kawashita rudimentary instruction on the state of modern technology. He referred to a tapas frequently. Elvox made a mental note to subpoem that tapas in any legal dispute, to see if it was biased.

  The Japanese seemed at ease. He was listening studiously to everything said, though he couldn’t possibly understand a tenth of it, Elvox thought.

  Anna took Elvox aside and welcomed him aboard the ship. “What can we do for you, Loytnant?”

  “I’m here to speak with Kawashita, find out how he came to be here, offer him our congratulations…” He trailed off and smiled nervously. Kiril Kondrashef, Nestor’s shuttle pilot, was explaining the craft’s power system. Anna turned awa
y to explain a detail more simply. She then turned back to Elvox and motioned him to take a seat.

  “We’re very interested in your welfare, Yoshio,” Elvox said during a lull. “As…uh…Anna Nestor is. And we want you to understand how important your position is now.” Nestor smiled enigmatically. Elvox suddenly felt like a clumsy child.

  “I begin to see,” Kawashita said. “Things are being explained well.”

  “I hope you see that there are a great many things that will be very difficult for you to understand…right away.” He smiled ingratiatingly at Nestor, by way of experiment. Her smile shifted slightly and seemed to mirror his own. “Our technology is too complex for even a modern individual to absorb quickly. Some of the concepts will probably take years to sink in.”

  “Probably,” Kawashita admitted. “I am not unfamiliar with some, however. Was talked about for a long time, this warper ability.”

  Elvox was taken aback. “In your time, they…uh…knew about higher and lower spaces, how to use them?”

  Kawashita shook his head. “Not in my time. After. I was let to read.”

  Elvox itched to ask what he had been allowed to read, but a glance at Nestor told him the Japanese wasn’t willing to divulge such things yet. She shook her head and pursed her lips.

  “Yoshio is up on quite a few things we wouldn’t expect him to be,” she said. “He’s learning very quickly.”

  The lander shuddered slightly, and a mournful hum vibrated through the bulkheads. The pilot cleared the direct-view plates. Dark thunderheads were piling up all around the dome and landing area. Elvox saw Ruysmal and Dean walking toward the dome, leaning into a stiff breeze.

  “Looks like the Waunters are settling in for a blow,” the pilot said.

  Stabilizers were spreading out and bolts were being driven into the concrete. Nestor chuckled. “Until we’re sure about all this, let’s prepare to stay.” She looked at Elvox again. “Loytnant, unless you wish to risk life and limb, I suggest you remain here as our guest. I hope that won’t be too inconvenient.”