by Nancy Kress
“Dr. Capelo, I so happy to meet at you! Splendid! Great honor by me!”
Capelo looked at him questioningly. Amanda said, “Daddy, this is Konstantin Ouranis, my … my friend.” And blushed a mottled maroon.
“Oh oh,” Marbet whispered beside Kaufman’s ear.
Capelo shook the boy’s hand, not really seeing him, and turned to embrace his sister. Amanda waited until they had babbled and hugged a few minutes. She then said firmly, “Daddy, Konstantin saved my life. And we’re on Thera Station because of him. He’s coming with us back to Earth.”
Capelo turned slowly toward his daughter.
“I have a lot to tell you,” she said, “and some of it is really incredible!”
Martin Blumberg said quickly, “Tom, we are indeed Konstantin’s guests, and it’s one of his father’s ships that’s going to take us to Earth. Today, if you want. Kristen and I are going with you, at least for now. Mars isn’t the most tranquil environment right now.”
A man with a gift for understatement.
Capelo may or may not have heard him. He had an almost comic expression on his face: surprise and suspicion and joy in unholy mixture. His gaze swept up and down Amanda’s body, dressed in blue shorts and close-fitting tunic. Kaufman had already noticed the girl’s beautiful long legs. Under her father’s scrutiny Amanda suddenly groped for Konstantin’s hand, and Capelo’s expression contorted his features so much more that Kaufman had to suppress a grin.
Kristen said hastily, “I heard from Carol just this morning, Tom, she and Sudie can’t wait to see you! Our ship is one of those fast new G-four’s, we can make Earth orbit in less than three months, Konstantin says…” She faltered.
“Hello, Amanda,” Marbet said loudly.
“Marbet!” And then Amanda was hugging Marbet tightly, towering over the Sensitive. Kaufman shook hands with Kristen, with Martin, with Konstantin. The captain was introduced and began a flowery speech. Capelo eyed his daughter as if she had sprouted wings. Or horns. His hand caught at her free one, and his face gathered into bewildered wrath.
“Colonel Kaufman, Miss Grant,” Konstantin said, “is space at you two by my ship. To go to Earth. Very welcome!”
“Thank you,” Kaufman said.
“Come with me, everyone,” the captain said. ‘There’s a little party for you in my quarters.”
“Amanda,” Capelo said; “I want to speak with you alone.”
“Of course. But we have tons of time. Oh, God, I was so scared you were dead, Daddy! And so many things happened that you don’t know about yet!” She kept hold of Konstantin Ouranis’s hand.
“Now. I want to talk to you now.”
“Later, Daddy,” she said in her high clear voice, and led her father forward with the others.
Kaufman hung back. He said to Marbet, “An irreversible action if there ever was one. She grew up. And Tom will just have to adjust to that, won’t he?”
She stopped dead. He turned to look at her, knowing that she had heard more in his voice than the words themselves, had read more in his body language than words—his words, anyway—could hold.
“Lyle?”
“I’m not going on to Earth with them, Marbet. There’s nothing for me there. But Mars is going to need every impartial negotiator she can get, and General Tolliver Gordon is moving into a favorable position. I know him well. He’s a good man.”
She waited.
“I need to do something useful. This is it, I think. And one other thing. Magdalena told me, before she died … I’m going to have a tombstone made for her on Mars. She told me about a woman named Sualeen Harris … but all that can wait. Marbet, will you stay with me on Mars?”
Still she waited.
There’s work for you here, too. God, yes. As a Sensitive, as a symbol—I suppose We’re both that after the press announcements at the tunnel. As … as someone I need with me.”
“Yes, Lyle. I’ll stay.”
He took her hand. Capelo and Amanda had already started to argue. Kaufman could hear them even though they were trying to keep their voices down, Amanda with one hand clutching her father’s and the other holding the fingers of Konstantin Ouranis, who went on smiling, a strong young figure with the inevitability of the gravity on the conflicted planet below.
Kaufman and Marbet followed the others out of the docking bay and into Thera Station.
BONUS SHORT-STORY
FLOWERS OF AULIT PRISON
My sister lies sweetly on the bed across the room from mine. She lies on her back, fingers lightly curled, her legs stretched straight as elindel trees. Her pert little nose, much prettier than my own, pokes delicately into the air. Her skin glows like a fresh flower. But not with health. She is, of course, dead.
I slip out of my bed and stand swaying a moment, with morning dizziness. A Terran healer once told me my blood pressure was too low, which is the sort of nonsensical thing Terrans will sometimes say—like announcing the air is too moist. The air is what it is, and so am I.
What I am is a murderer.
I kneel in front of my sister’s glass coffin. My mouth has that awful morning taste, even though last night I drank nothing stronger than water. Almost I yawn, but at the last moment I turn it into a narrow-lipped ringing in my ears that somehow leaves my mouth tasting worse than ever. But at least I haven’t disrespected Ano. She was my only sibling and closest friend, until I replaced her with illusion.
“Two more years, Ano,” I say, “less forty-two days. Then you will be free. And so will I.”
Ano, of course, says nothing. There is no need. She knows as well as I the time until her burial, when she can be released from the chemicals and glass that bind her dead body and can rejoin our ancestors. Others I have known whose relatives were under atonement bondage said the bodies complained and recriminated, especially in dreams, making the house a misery. Ano is more considerate. Her corpse never troubles me at all. I do that to myself.
I finish the morning prayers, leap up, and stagger dizzily to the piss closet. I may not have drunk pel last night, but my bladder is nonetheless bursting.
At noon a messenger rides into my yard on a Terran bicycle. The bicycle is an attractive design, sloping, with interesting curves. Adapted for our market, undoubtedly. The messenger is less attractive, a surly boy probably in his first year of government service. When I smile at him, he looks away. He would rather be someplace else. Well, if he doesn’t perform his messenger duties with more courteous cheer, he will be.
“Letter for Uli Pek Bengarin.”
“I am Uli Pek Bengarin.”
Scowling, he hands me the letter and pedals away. I don’t take the scowl personally. The boy does not, of course, know what I am, any more than my neighbors do. That would defeat the whole point. I am supposed to pass as fully real, until I can earn the right to resume being so.
The letter is shaped into a utilitarian circle, very businesslike, with a generic government seal. It could have come from the Tax Section, or Community Relief, or Processions and Rituals. But of course it hasn’t; none of those sections would write to me until I am real again. The sealed letter is from Reality and Atonement. It’s a summons; they have a job for me.
And about time. I have been home nearly six weeks since the last job, shaping my flowerbeds and polishing dishes and trying to paint a skyscape of last month’s synchrony, when all six moons were visible at once. I paint badly. It is time for another job.
I pack my shoulder sack, kiss the glass of my sister’s coffin, and lock the house. Then I wheel my bicycle—not, alas, as interestingly curved as the messenger’s—out of its shed and pedal down the dusty road toward the city.
Frablit Pek Brimmidin is nervous. This interests me; Pek Brimmidin is usually a calm, controlled man, the sort who never replaces reality with illusion. He’s given me my previous jobs with no fuss. But now he actually can’t sit still; he fidgets back and forth across his small office, which is cluttered with papers, stone sculptures in an exaggerated
style I don’t like at all, and plates of half-eaten food. I don’t comment on either the food or the pacing. I am fond of Pek Brimmidin, quite apart from my gratitude to him, which is profound. He was the official in R&A who voted to give me a chance to become real again. The other two judges voted for perpetual death, no chance of atonement. I’m not supposed to know this much detail about my own case, but I do. Pek Brimmidin is middle-aged, a stocky man whose neck fur has just begun to yellow. His eyes are gray, and kind.
“Pek Bengarin,” he says, finally, and then stops.
“I stand ready to serve,” I say softly, so as not to make him even more nervous. But something is growing heavy in my stomach. This does not look good.
“Pek Bengarin.” Another pause. “You are an informer.”
“I stand ready to serve our shared reality,” I repeat, despite my astonishment. Of course I’m an informer. I’ve been an informer for two years and eighty-two days. I killed my sister, and I will be an informer until my atonement is over, I can be fully real again, and Ano can be released from death to join our ancestors. Pek Brimmidin knows this. He’s assigned me every one of my previous informing jobs, from the first easy one in currency counterfeiting right through the last one, in baby stealing. I’m a very good informer, as Pek Brimmidin also knows. What’s wrong with the man?
Suddenly Pek Brimmidin straightens. But he doesn’t look me in the eye. “You are an informer, and the Section for Reality and Atonement has an informing job for you. In Aulit Prison.”
So that’s it. I go still. Aulit Prison holds criminals. Not just those who have tried to get away with stealing or cheating or child-snatching, which are, after all, normal. Aulit Prison holds those who are unreal, who have succumbed to the illusion that they are not part of shared common reality and so may do violence to the most concrete reality of others: their physical bodies. Maimers. Rapists. Murderers.
Like me.
I feel my left hand tremble, and I strive to control it and to not show how hurt I am. I thought Pek Brimmidin thought better of me. There is of course no such thing as partial atonement—one is either real or one is not—but a part of my mind nonetheless thought that Pek Brimmidin had recognized two years and eighty-two days of effort in regaining my reality. I have worked so hard.
He must see some of this on my face because he says quickly, “I am sorry to assign this job to you, Pek. I wish I had a better one. But you’ve been requested specifically by Rafkit Sarloe.” Requested by the capital; my spirits lift slightly. “They’ve added a note to the request. I am authorized to tell you the informant job carries additional compensation. If you succeed, your debt will be considered immediately paid, and you can be restored at once to reality.”
Restored at once to reality. I would again be a full member of World, without shame. Entitled to live in the real world of shared humanity, and to hold my head up with pride. And Ano could be buried, the artificial chemicals washed from her body, so that it could return to World and her sweet spirit could join our ancestors. Ano, too, would be restored to reality.
“I’ll do it,” I tell Pek Brimmidin. And then, formally, “I stand ready to serve our shared reality.”
“One more thing, before you agree, Pek Bengarin.” Pek Brimmidin is fidgeting again. “The suspect is a Terran.”
I have never before informed on a Terran. Aulit Prison, of course, holds those aliens who have been judged unreal: Terrans, Fallers, the weird little Huhuhubs. The problem is that even after thirty years of ships coming to World, there is still considerable debate about whether any aliens are real at all. Clearly their bodies exist; after all, here they are. But their thinking is so disordered they might almost qualify as all being unable to recognize shared social reality, and so just as unreal as those poor empty children who never attain reason and must be destroyed.
Usually we on World just leave the aliens alone, except of course for trading with them. The Terrans in particular offer interesting objects, such as bicycles, and ask in return worthless items, mostly perfectly obvious information. But do any of the aliens have souls, capable of recognizing and honoring a shared reality with the souls of others? At the universities, the argument goes on. Also in market squares and pel shops, which is where I hear it. Personally, I think aliens may well be real. I try not to be a bigot.
I say to Pek Brimmidin, “I am willing to inform on a Terran.”
He wiggles his hand in pleasure. “Good, good. You will enter Aulit Prison a Capmonth before the suspect is brought there. You will use your primary cover, please.”
I nod, although Pek Brimmidin knows this is not easy for me. My primary cover is the truth: I killed my sister Ano Pek Bengarin two years and eighty-two days ago and was judged unreal enough for perpetual death, never able to join my ancestors. The only untrue part of the cover is that I escaped and have been hiding from the Section police ever since.
“You have just been captured,” Pek Brimmidin continues, “and assigned to the first part of your death in Aulit. The Section records will show this.”
Again I nod, not looking at him. The first part of my death in Aulit, the second, when the time came, in the kind of chemical bondage that holds Ano. And never ever to be freed—ever. What if it were true? I should go mad. Many do.
“The suspect is named ‘Carryl Walters.’ He is a Terran healer. He murdered a World child, in an experiment to discover how real people’s brains function. His sentence is perpetual death. But the Section believes that Carryl Walters was working with a group of World people in these experiments. That somewhere on World there is a group that’s so lost its hold on reality that it would murder children to investigate science.”
For a moment the room wavers, including the exaggerated swooping curves of Pek Brimmidin’s ugly sculptures. But then I get hold of myself. I am an informer, and a good one. I can do this. I am redeeming myself, and releasing Ano. I am an informer.
“I’ll find out who this group is,” I say. “And what they’re doing, and where they are.”
Pek Brimmidin smiles at me. “Good.” His trust is a dose of shared reality: two people acknowledging their common perceptions together, without lies or violence. I need this dose. It is probably the last one I will have for a long time.
How do people manage in perpetual death, fed on only solitary illusion?
Aulit Prison must be full of the mad.
Traveling to Aulit takes two days of hard riding. Somewhere my bicycle loses a bolt, and I wheel it to the next village. The woman who runs the bicycle shop is competent but mean, the sort who gazes at shared reality mostly to pick out the ugly parts.
“At least it’s not a Terran bicycle.”
“At least,” I say, but she is incapable of recognizing sarcasm.
“Sneaky soulless criminals, taking us over bit by bit. We should never have allowed them in. And the government is supposed to protect us from unreal slime, ha, what a joke. Your bolt is a nonstandard size.”
“Is it?” I say.
“Yes. Costs you extra.”
I nod. Behind the open rear door of the shop, two little girls play in a thick stand of moonweed.
“We should kill all the aliens,” the repairer says. “No shame in destroying them before they corrupt us.”
“Eurummmn,” I say. Informers are not supposed to make themselves conspicuous with political debate. Above the two children’s heads, the moonweed bends gracefully in the wind. One of the little girls has long brown neck fur, very pretty. The other does not.
“There, that bolt will hold fine. Where you from?”
“Rafkit Sarloe.” Informers never name their villages.
She gives an exaggerated shudder. “I would never visit the capital. Too many aliens. They destroy our participation in shared reality without a moment’s thought! Three and eight, please.”
I want to say No one but you can destroy your own participation in shared reality, but I don’t. Silently I pay her the money.
She glares at me, at th
e world. “You don’t believe me about the Terrans. But I know what I know!”
I ride away, through the flowered countryside. In the sky, only Cap is visible, rising on the horizon opposite the sun. Cap glows with a clear white smoothness, like Ano’s skin.
The Terrans, I am told, have only one moon. Shared reality on their world is, perhaps, skimpier than ours: less curved, less rich, less warm.
Are they ever jealous?
Aulit prison sits on a flat plain inland from the South Coast. I know that other islands on World have their own prisons, just as they have their own governments, but only Aulit is used for the alien unreal, as well as our own. A special agreement among the governments of World makes this possible. The alien governments protest, but of course it does them no good. The unreal is the unreal, and far too painful and dangerous to have running around loose. Besides, the alien governments are far away on other stars.
Aulit is huge and ugly, a straight-lined monolith of dull red stone, with no curves anywhere. An official from R&A meets me and turns me over to two prison guards. We enter through a barred gate, my bicycle chained to the guards’, and I to my bicycle. I am led across a wide dusty yard toward a stone wall. The guards of course don’t speak to me; I am unreal.
My cell is square, twice my length on a side. There is a bed, a piss pot, a table, and a single chair. The door is without a window, and all the other doors in the row of cells are closed.
“When will the prisoners be allowed to be all together?” I ask, but of course the guard doesn’t answer me. I am not real.
I sit in my chair and wait. Without a clock, it’s difficult to judge time, but I think a few hours pass totally without event. Then a gong sounds and my door slides up into the ceiling. Ropes and pulleys, controlled from above, inaccessible from inside the cell.
The corridor fills with illusionary people. Men and women, some with yellowed neck fur and sunken eyes, walking with the shuffle of old age. Some young, striding along with that dangerous mixture of anger and desperation. And the aliens.
