by Nancy Kress
“Where are they?” he snarled.
The pain was astonishing. It danced up her spine, down her legs. It crushed everything under its ruthless feet. She couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak. There was nothing but pain.
“Where are they, Pek?”
She whimpered and spasmed on the floor, unable to answer. He said something that might have been Dung or Do it or even Help us. Then Enli felt the unthinkable, the truly unreal … a knife slide into her skin, her flesh, her living side. Everything disappeared.
By the time the four Terrans had made their way across the dark gardens to Pek Voratur’s personal rooms, Bazargan had regained his composure. Well, perhaps not composure. One could hardly be composed bringing news of possible mass destruction to one’s alien hosts. But at least Bazargan again felt a superficial calm.
In the master of the household’s personal garden, Ann whispered, “Ahmed, wait for Dieter.”
Bazargan turned. “Dieter? Where did he go? I thought he was with us.”
“He will be. He just went to his own room for some rock samples. He wants to show Voratur exactly what will go unstable when the wave effect hits.”
It seemed to Bazargan that the show-and-tell could have waited until after the first announcement, but Gruber had already left. The others had no choice but to wait for him, shivering slightly. It lacked a few hours until dawn. Another moon was in the process of rising; Bazargan didn’t know which one. The glowing light rose above the dark bulk of the household wall. One of the larger, slower-moving moons: Ral, or perhaps Cut. Not Tas, which was being towed toward Space Tunnel #438. Through the cold pale light drifted the fragrance of unseen flowers.
Not a nightingale but knows/ In the rosebud sleeps the rose … Hafiz. Not since Bazargan was a boy had anyplace evoked so much Persian poetry in his mind. It was the flowers, the architecture, the courtyards.
It was the Byzantine situation.
The inability to accomplish anything without complications, intrigue, night plotting. All the reasons the young Bazargan had hated Iran, and loved it. All the reasons he had chosen to study abroad, and had ended up studying anthropology, the opportunity to experience other groups’ night plotting rather than one’s own. And so coming to this night garden that smelled like Isfahan.
“I am here,” Gruber said, materializing beside Bazargan. Gruber had taken the time to dress in warm clothing. He carried a large bag of his beloved rocks.
“Show time,” Ann said, and Bazargan saw again that side of her usually hidden, the bravado that was counterpoint to her gentleness. “Let’s go in.”
They each plucked a flower from the hospitality bushes, and Bazargan tinkled the announcement chains.
Pek Voratur’s personal servant led them into the personal room. The servant had drawn the outer curtain to the garden, blinking in sleepy astonishment, fumbling to light a lamp. Then the man had vanished into the inner rooms, from which had come an annoyed exclamation, a female whisper, and more lamps. Finally Pek Voratur had emerged alone, letting the heavy curtain fall between him and Alu. The stout Worlder scowled; his neckfur stuck up in stiff ridges around his jowls.
“Pek Voratur, my flowers wilt in shame at awakening you like this,” Bazargan said, “but it is an emergency. We have just learned that reality has shifted and we must share it with you immediately.”
Voratur’s face changed from annoyance to the trader’s alert calculation. “May your flowers bloom, Pek Bazargan. What reality has shifted?”
No invitation to sit. The servant hovered respectfully against the wall; Voratur had not chosen to send him away. There was no choice but to plunge ahead.
Bazargan said, “Our large flying boat has called us from space. There is a danger to World and all on it. A strange weapon”—he used the World word for “thing causing an explosion or forest fire”—“has been discovered circling your world. Terrans are trying to … to keep it from exploding, much as frelbark explodes when tossed into a fire. But this explosion may—I say ‘may,’ because we don’t know for certain—affect World in very strange ways. As soon as the Terrans on our ship told us about this, we came to share reality with you. You must take us to the Office of Emergency Aid. The whole planet will need to prepare.”
Voratur looked bewildered. With one fat hand he swiped at his unruly neckfur, then seemed to forget it. “A weapon circling World? What weapon? Whose weapon?”
“We don’t know,” Bazargan said truthfully. “It’s very old. It has been in orbit around World for a long, long, time.”
“And it will explode? How—”
“May explode.”
“—do you know?”
“Our priests aboard ship are examining the weapon. This is what they think. We must go to the Office of Emergency Aid so that the planet can prepare.”
“Prepare how?” Voratur seemed more bewildered than ever.
“We will explain. It’s complicated, Pek Voratur. But reality is shared, and it’s possible no one on World will be harmed at all.” Possible, yes. But how likely?
“What … what is this weapon that you have discovered called?”
Bazargan thought rapidly. Worlders were keen sky observers; they would soon notice that Tas, fastest-moving of the two low-orbit moons, was not scurrying as usual across the sky. “The weapon is the moon Tas, which is not a moon. It is a hollow metal ball.”
“A hollow metal ball! The moon is the moon!”
“No. I’m afraid it is not.”
Bazargan watched as Voratur struggled with the idea. “But it … all right, it is a hollow metal ball. A weapon. Very old. Not Terran and not World. And it may explode.”
“Yes, Pek Voratur. It may explode.”
“I don’t understand any of this!”
David Allen said sympathetically, “It is hard to understand, Pek. We Terrans do not understand all the behavior of Tas. But we do know that it is a manufactured item.”
Voratur froze.
What, Bazargan thought frantically, what does that word mean to him? What’s happening now … ?
“‘Manufactured item,’” Voratur repeated. “Tas is the manufactured item. ‘We will come back for the manufactured item,’ your traders said the first time. We thought you meant for the items made in our manufacturies. But you meant Tas. You came back for Tas.”
“Pek—”
“You knew. You knew it was not a moon but a weapon. You knew nearly a year ago, and you did not share the reality.”
“No,” Bazargan said swiftly. “No, no. We have just learned this. Our people in orbit have just told us—”
He saw his mistake. Too late.
“They knew,” Voratur said. “Terrans in space knew. And they did not share reality with you, with others of their own kind …”
Voratur’s face changed. The headpain must be blinding, Bazargan thought. Blinding, thrusting, stabbing. But not so much that Voratur could not think, could not draw the inevitable conclusion. People who could violate reality with their own kind … Terrans were not real. Proof positive, proof not even requiring the wisdom of a High Council. A World child could see it. He, Bazargan, had to act fast, or they were all dead.
Voratur and Gruber acted faster.
“Unreal!” Voratur said to the servant by the archway. “Call the household!” The man ducked through the curtain. Gruber was already bending over his sack of rocks, but by the time he came up holding a tunable laser gun, the servant had vanished not only from the room but from the outer courtyard.
“Verdammt! Pek Voratur, lie facedown on the floor, please.”
Bazargan heard his own voice sounding tired. “Not necessary, Dieter. They don’t do it that way.” And indeed Voratur was already looking through the Terrans, past the empty space they did not occupy. They were unreal.
“What?” Gruber said. “That servant will tell the household we are unreal!”
“I’m sure he already has. And if Pek Voratur were strong enough to attack four adults, he would
destroy us. But he is not, and so we simply do not exist. We are unreal.”
“But the household altogether is strong enough to attack us, ja? So we will leave. Ann, follow me, then you, Ahmed, then—David? David!”
Bazargan turned. David Allen stood stiffly, brittle as glass. And Bazargan realized.
And if Pek Voratur were strong enough to attack four adults, he would destroy us …
Bonnie. Ben.
“David, wait!” But Bazargan was already too late. Allen flew across the courtyard, stumbling in his haste, trampling a bed of allabenirib in his headlong dash to the crelm house.
“Oh, my dear God,” Ann whispered.
“They’ve only had a few minutes …” Bazargan said, and found that he didn’t believe it. A few minutes could be enough. When you had absolute moral certainty on your side, a few minutes could be more than enough.
“Stay together,” Gruber ordered. He led them to the crelm house, following David Allen’s crashing path. With each courtyard they passed, the sky lightened, the flowers unfolded, and the household of Voratur boiled from its buildings, only to catch sight of the three Terrans and freeze into ice.
A gardener caught Bazargan’s gaze and turned his back.
A woman rushed from the wash house, her face bursting with the horror of the news that the Terrans were unreal. She saw them actually in her own garden, shrieked, and then went blank, with that curious glazed blankness that refused to see. Her hands went to her head.
Another woman hurried past them, eyes straight ahead, carrying reality in the hunch of her shoulders. How fast could shared reality travel on World? At the speed of speech, since to utter the words was to verify them, to have them believed. All were one in reality.
All, now, but the humans.
Bazargan, Ann, and Gruber had not yet reached the crelm house when they heard David Allen’s anguished cry.
“No, no, no,” Ann whispered over and over, meaninglessly.
Bonnie and Ben had been taken into the play garden, away from the real children. Whoever had cut their small throats was already gone, but it didn’t matter who it had been. It could have been anyone. They all shared the same mind.
Bonnie wore a yellow nightdress, the same color as her hair. Ben had already been dressed for the day; children awoke very early. He wore a World tunic, red. The blood showed less than on Bonnie’s nightdress. David keened over the small bodies, his shoulders shaking.
Ann put a hand on him. “David … David. Come on, David. You can’t help them, and we have to leave.”
Allen jumped up and whirled on her, fists clenched. If it had been Gruber, Bazargan saw, Allen would have slugged him. But not Ann.
“You can’t help them, dearest,” she said again. “Come on. Before the household organizes an attack.”
He let her take his hand and lead him away.
“Stay together,” Gruber said. “The closest gate is through the servants’ court. This way.” Holding the gun, he led them past rushing people, who is their frantic communicative haste to tell each other the humans did not exist, acted exactly as if the four humans did not exist.
FIFTEEN
THE NEURY MOUNTAINS
Enli woke with the light.
Cold. The light was cold. No, she was cold. The old man, the unreal informant, had stabbed her. Of course he had; he was unreal. The unreal could kill. He had killed her.
She was unreal. But she had not killed him.
Cold. She was so cold.
She lay still on the floor of her personal room. Sticky dark stuff held her to the floor. No, she could crawl. Her blood wasn’t that sticky.
So cold.
She must tell Pek Voratur. He was real. He would not use an informant who could kill. He would make the old man go away from the household. She must tell Pek Voratur.
Tabor had been this cold, lying in his own blood at the foot of the flower altar. So beautiful the altar had been, covered in rafirib and adkinib and red Terran rosib … no, no, no, the Terran rosib had come to World much later … Tabor. Cold.
She must tell Pek Voratur. Only then could she live to set Tabor free.
Enli pulled herself across the floor. Another arm’s length to the archway. Her vision blurred. She kept on going. Now she had reached the curtain. She crawled under it, cold. The floor under her changed from icy tiles to icy garden stone.
Morning. Barely morning. Oh, Tabor …
Someone shrieked. Not in her court, in another. Why were people shrieking in the orderly Voratur household this early in the morning? It wasn’t because of her; she hadn’t seen anyone yet. It wasn’t because of Tabor; he was far away, dead at the foot of the flowered altar …
“Enli! Oh, my God, Enli!”
Pek Sikorski. But that made no sense. Why would Pek Sikorski be in a servants’ courtyard at dawn, when it was so cold … ?
“Enli. Can you hear me?”
She was being rolled over. Pek Sikorski bent over her.
“Y-yes, P-P-Pek …”
“She’s alive. Stabbed. And blood on the back of her head … Dieter, I need my medkit.”
“It’s here,” another voice said, and Enli realized they were speaking Terran, not World.
“You knew,” Bazargan said. So he was here, too, in a servants’ courtyard at dawn. So strange.
So cold.
“You knew how Voratur would react, and that’s why you had the gun, Dieter. And the medkit. And whatever else is in that bag.”
“No, of course I didn’t know. Who can know what these Worlders will do, Ahmed? But I thought to prepare, and it’s a good thing, ja? Ann, you cannot take time to do that.”
“It’s Enli,” Pek Sikorski said, which was strange because Enli already knew who she was. Didn’t the others?
“But Ann—”
“Don’t you see?” Pek Sikorski’s voice scaled upward. “She must have been knifed because of us. Because of her close association with us. Like … like …”
“Ssshhhhh, Ann.”
“She’s coming with us. She’s not that badly hurt; it looks worse than it is.”
“Ann, consider—”
“I’ll carry her,” said yet another voice, and it was Pek Allen’s, only it wasn’t.
Pek Sikorski put something on Enli’s skin, something warm, and the pain went away. Just like that—the pain went away. Enli felt herself being lifted, and caught a glimpse of Pek Allen’s face looming over hers. Some people ran past her in the garden, but never looked in her direction.
“She’ll be out cold in a minute,” someone said.
There was only time to say, “Bring Tabor,” and then warmth spread over her and she smiled and it didn’t matter that nothing made any sense.
She and Tabor danced on the village green, between the cookfires, with the other young people. Old Pek Raumul played the pipes. They danced as they danced every night in Gofkit Shamloe, among the dinners cooking and the children racing in and out and the shared reality warm and heavy as perfume. Only it wasn’t every night. It was the night she and Tabor left the green and went down to the river among the pajalib and Tabor said, “There are hard wires on brains floating down the river—you better give me the government pills,” and then the old man stabbed him in the side with a Terran rose.
“It’s another twenty kilometers,” Tabor said, only it wasn’t Tabor at all, it was a Terran voice, speaking Terran words. “I wish we had the bicycles.”
Enli opened her eyes. She lay on open ground, under moons and stars. The stars looked pure and sharp, very far away. Cold night air brushed her cheeks, but the rest of her felt warm under some impossibly light blanket that seemed to generate its own heat. Nothing hurt—not her torso, nor the back of her head. Instead her whole body felt strangely buoyant, as if she floated on unseen water. Nearby the four Terrans sat under similar blankets around a small glowing cone of light such as Enli had never before seen or imagined.
“Do you think they’re coming after us?” Pek Sikorski.
“Priests. They’re the cause of this!”
“No, David,” Pek Bazargan said. “We’re the cause of this. Our own people on the Zeus. We should have been informed of every facet of this mission at the beginning. That’s the only way we could have made a better judgment of what to tell the Worlders.”
“And what would you have told them?” Pek Gruber challenged. “The alien weapon was a military secret. You could not have said anything anyway.”
“Fuck military secrets!” Pek Allen said.
“You would think so,” Pek Gruber said.
“Stop it.” Pek Sikorski, as stern as Enli had ever heard her. “We can’t afford to quarrel. David, Dieter, you know that.”
Pek Bazargan said, “We need to plan, and then to sleep. A few hours only. Then keep walking, to reach the mountains as soon as possible, so we won’t have to fight off anyone sent from Reality and Atonement. By now, news of us is starting on its way around World.” He thought of the sunflashers on their efficient towers. “I don’t want to have to kill any Worlders.”
“Not even the priests that slaughtered Bonnie and Ben?” Pek Allen said bitterly. “Not even the so-called religious, power-mad Worlders that could cut the throats of babies while they lay sleeping in their … their …” The voice faltered. Then Pek Allen stood up and stalked off into the darkness.
“Asshole,” Pek Gruber said. “Does he think he’s helping by fighting with us? Or by getting lost alone out there?”
“He won’t go far,” Pek Sikorski said. “This is worst for him, Dieter. He took care of those babies every single day.”
“I know,” Pek Gruber said, more quietly. “Look—Enli is awake.”
Then Pek Sikorski was leaning over her, putting things against her forehead, her side. “How do you feel, Enli?”
Enli said, “You are unreal. All of you are unreal.”
Pek Bazargan spoke over Pek Sikorski’s shoulder, not in Terran but in World. “And so are you, Enli. Aren’t you?”
