Foreigner

by Robert J. Sawyer

  Total, absolute darkness now. No trace of light from the fire. She removed her hand from the wall and held it in front of her face. Completely invisible. She closed her inner and outer eyelids. No difference. Utter, complete, soul-devouring blackness.

  Novato walked slowly, afraid of losing her footing on the too-smooth, slightly angled floor.

  The ship groaned.

  She stopped dead, held her breath.

  Again: a moaning sound, coming from all around her.

  She touched her hunter’s tattoo and then her left shoulder, an ancient gesture of obeisance to God.

  Once more: a low, sustained, mournful sound.

  The ship…alive? Alive, after all this time?

  Impossible. It had been buried millions of kilodays ago. Novato hadn’t realized her hands were shaking until she tried to bring them together.

  Groaning, rumbling—like, like digestion. As though she’d been swallowed alive…

  But then she slapped her tail loudly against the floor.

  Be rational, she thought. Rational.

  She’d heard this sound before, but never so clearly. Most of the ship was buried in a cliff. As the day wore on, the rocks of the cliff’s face heated and expanded. Their shifting against the unyielding hull caused sounds like these. She’d never been so close to the outer hull when the shifting had occurred, but that must be it. It must be.

  She touched her teeth together and shook her head. If Afsan could only see me now—

  Afsan, so rational, so logical. Why, he’d click his teeth until all the loose ones had been knocked out if he saw Novato being so foolish…

  But then it hit her. If Afsan could see me now? Afsan sees nothing, nothing at all.

  Novato began walking again, her claws still unsheathed, although she was certain—certain!—that should she now command them to, they would slip back into her fingers, out of view.

  Out of view.

  She thought again of Afsan. Was this what it was like to be blind? Did Afsan feel the kind of fear she felt now, unsure of every step, unaware of what might be lurking only a pace away? How could one get used to this? Was he used to it? Even now, even after all this time?

  He had never seen their children, never seen the vast spaceship Novato was now within, never seen the statue erected in his honor in Capital City.

  And never, except that one wonderful time when he had come to Pack Gelbo all those kilodays ago, had he seen Novato.

  Of course he must be used to the darkness. Of course.

  She continued through the void, the image of Afsan giving her strength. She felt, in a strange way, as though he, with all his experience in navigating in darkness, walked beside her.

  Her footfalls echoed. The ship moaned again as its rocky tomb heated further.

  Suddenly her left hand was touching nothing but air. The corridor had opened into another corridor, running perpendicular to it. Novato exhaled noisily. Her teams had marked every intersection with a circle of paint on the wall, color-coding the various paths through the ship’s interior. Of course, she couldn’t see the colors—or anything else—but surely she could find the circle. She felt at shoulder-height. Nothing but smooth, uninterrupted wall, until—yes, here it was. A roughening of the wall surface, a round area of a different texture. Dried paint.

  Novato scraped the paint with her claws, catching tiny flakes of pigment on their tips. She brought her fingers to her nostrils and inhaled deeply.

  A scent, faint but unmistakable: sulfur. Yellow pigment. Yellow marked the corridor designated major-axis 2. She stopped, picturing the layout of the ship. Yes, major-axis 2…that made sense. She had been going the wrong way, but she knew how to get out from here, although it would require more time. She would take the right-hand path here, and in what—a hundred kilopaces?—she’d come to another intersection. Another right and then a left and eventually she’d be back at the strange double-doored room that led outside.

  She paused for a moment, relaxing. Her claws slipped back into their sheaths. The panic of moments before was forgotten. She stepped—

  What was that?

  A flash of light?

  Light?

  Here, inside the ship?

  Madness…unless a firefly or glowgrub had made its way into the interior.

  She looked in the direction from which she’d seen the flickering.

  Nothing. Of course not. Why, hadn’t Afsan once said he still occasionally saw little flashes of light? The mind hated to be deprived…

  There it was again…

  Novato brought the side of her head right up to the wall and stared into the darkness.

  The ship was old, inconceivably ancient.

  But there it was once more, a flash of greenish-white, gone almost before she’d even noticed it. A line of geometric shapes, flashing in the dark. Incredible.

  Novato wanted to mark this spot so she could find it again. She undid the neck chain that helped hold her sash on, then lifted the wide loop of leather over her head and set it on the floor in front of the flashing symbols on the wall. The sash settled with little clinks as its brass and copper ornaments touched the deck.

  Alive. After all this time, at least some small part of the ship was alive.

  Novato went down the corridor as fast as she dared in the darkness, anxious to get a fresh lamp and return to examine whatever she had found. Finally, she caught sight of a pale rectangle of light along the corridor: the double-doored room. The inner door was wide open; the outer one jammed half-closed, just as it had been ever since her son Toroca had first entered the ship three kilodays ago. Novato shouldered her way through, cool night air pouring in from outside. The fit was getting tighter all the time; eventually the growth that would go on until her death would prevent her from squeezing into the ship.

  She stumbled out onto the wooden scaffolding. It was early evening, the sun having just set. Still, after so long in absolute darkness, the five moons visible overhead blazed like wild flames.

  Captain Keenir of the Dasheter slowly regained his senses. He pushed himself off the carcass of the bizarre yellow being and staggered back a few paces along the beach, a look of horror on his face.

  “What have I done?” he said, leaning on his tail for support, his gravelly voice a half-whimper. “What have I done?” The captain looked down. His arms were covered with drying blood up to the elbows, and his entire muzzle was crusted over with red. He brought his hands to his face and tried to wipe the blood from there. “What have I done?” he said once more.

  Toroca looked at the dead body. It had been badly mauled. Before coming out of the territorial madness, Keenir had bolted down three large strips of flesh, cleaning the neck, shoulders, and most of the back of meat.

  Toroca had backed away and was now about twenty paces from Keenir. “Why did you kill it?” he said.

  The captain’s voice was low. “I—I don’t know. It—it must have invaded my territory…”

  Toroca’s tail swished in negation. “No. It was nowhere near you. You saw it, and went, well, berserk.”

  “It was evil. It had to die. It was a threat.”

  “How, Keenir? How did it threaten you?”

  Keenir’s voice was faint. “It had to die,” he said again. He staggered toward the lapping water at the edge of the beach, crouched down, and tried to wash his hands. The water turned pink, but his hands weren’t really coming clean. He scooped up some wet sand and rubbed it over them, scouring the blood away. He kept rubbing his hands, so much so that Toroca thought they’d end up covered in the captain’s own blood, but at last he stopped. He splashed water on his face in an attempt to clean his muzzle.

  There was a point where the lush vegetation stuck right out to the water’s edge. Suddenly there was movement in that brush, and for one horrible moment Toroca thought it was another of the strange yellow creatures, come to avenge its comrade’s death. But it was only Babnol and Spalton, the other two surveyors, who had made their own landing south
of here.

  But then he saw their faces.

  Muzzles slick with blood.

  “Toroca,” said Babnol, her voice tremulous. “I think Spalton and I just did a terrible thing…”

  Chapter 4

  By now, Afsan’s eyes had grown back to full size, black orbs filling the once-empty sockets. His lids had sagged for so long that they’d developed permanent fold marks that showed as yellow lines now that they were filled out from underneath.

  And yet, despite his new eyes, Afsan still could not see.

  After his lunch with Dybo, Afsan walked the short distance to the imperial surgery and once again opened his lids so that Dar-Mondark could look at his new eyes.

  “And you still can’t see anything?” said Mondark.

  “That’s right.”

  “Not even vague shapes? No hint of light? Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Your eyes look fine, Afsan. They look like they should work.”

  Afsan’s tail swished gently. “When I was young, I once traded some time tutoring mathematics for a toy boat that I was enamored with. The boat was beautifully carved from soft stone and looked correct in every way. Only one problem: when I put it in a pond, it sank. It was good at everything except the one thing that defined its purpose.” He tipped his head. “Eyes that do everything well except see aren’t of much value, are they?”

  Mondark nodded. “That’s true. But, Afsan, your eyes are seeing: they are responding to light. Now, yes, perhaps there is some problem with the way your new eyes are connected to the rest of your body. But as far as I can tell, your eyes are fully restored.”

  “Then God is having Her revenge on me,” said Afsan, his tone only half-jesting. “A cruel joke, no? To give back eyes, only to have them not function.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps nothing, Doctor. I’m not a medical expert, but clearly there’s something wrong with the nerves that connect my eyes to my brain.”

  “In ordinary cases of blindness, I’d concur. But this isn’t ordinary. Your eyes are responding to light, and they’re tracking as though they can see. They would do neither of those things if there were extensive nerve damage.”

  “But I tell you, I’m not seeing anything.”

  “Exactly. Which brings us to another possibility.” Mondark paused, as if reluctant to go on.

  “Yes?” said Afsan impatiently.

  “Do you know the word ‘hysteria’?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not surprising; it’s a fairly new medical term. Hysteria refers to a neurosis characterized by physical symptoms, such as paralysis, that don’t seem to have any organic cause.”

  Afsan sounded suspicious. “For instance?”

  “Oh, there have been several cases over the kilodays. A person may lose the use of a limb even though the limb appears to be uninjured. And yet the person simply stops being able to move, for instance, his or her right arm.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Well, it does happen. It used to be if your arm stopped working, they’d hack it off in hopes that the regenerated arm would function. Sometimes that worked—if there had been damage to the nerves in the arm. But sometimes the arm would grow back just as dead as it had been before.”

  “But surely the paralysis would have been caused by a stroke or something similar.”

  “Ah, there’s the rub,” said Mondark. “When paralysis is caused by a stroke, it affects general parts of the body. Oh, the right arm might be completely paralyzed, but there will also be numbness in the right leg, and perhaps the right side of the face. But in hysterical paralysis, only the arm seems dead. The loss of sensation is quite abrupt, beginning, say, precisely at the shoulder, and affecting no other part of the body.”

  “Go on,” said Afsan.

  “Well, there are also cases of hysterical blindness: eyes that are in working order that simply no longer function.”

  “And you think that’s the case here? That my blindness is caused by…by hysteria?”

  “It’s possible. Your eyes physically can see, but your mind refuses to see.”

  “Nonsense, Mondark. I want to see. I’ve wanted to see since the very day I was blinded.”

  “Consciously, yes. But your subconscious—? Well, this isn’t my area of expertise, but there is a doctor who has had some success curing these matters, Afsan. She’s helped several people regain the use of arms or legs.”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Afsan. “If my eyes are malfunctioning, the problem is physical. It’s that simple.”

  “Perhaps,” said Mondark. “But what have you got to lose by visiting her?”

  “Time,” said Afsan. “I’m getting old, Mondark, and there is much that I wish to accomplish still.”

  Mondark grunted. “Humor me, Afsan. Meet with this person.”

  “I have been humoring you. I’ve been coming here every ten days to let you look at these useless eyes.”

  “And I thank you for that. But consider how lucky you are: almost no one who loses eyes gets them back. To give up now would be a horrible mistake. If there’s a chance—any chance at all—that you might be able to see again, you owe it to yourself to pursue it.”

  “I owe it to myself to be a realist,” said Afsan. “That’s the principle that has guided my entire life. I’m too old to change now.”

  “Do a favor for an old friend, Afsan. Indeed, do yourself a favor. At least arrange a consultation with Nav-Mokleb.”

  “Mokleb?” said Afsan, startled.

  “You’ve heard of her?”

  “Well, yes. Dybo has been after me to talk with her as well. Says she might be able to do something about the bad dreams I’ve been having.”

  “Those continue to plague you?”

  “Yes.”

  Mondark’s tail swished across the floor. “That settles it. Go to Rockscape. I’ll contact Mokleb and send her out to see you.”

  “Dybo already has her coming out tomorrow morning.”

  “Good,” said Mondark. “Who knows? Maybe she’ll be able to cure both your bad dreams and your blindness.”

  There was no need for Novato to wait until morning; working inside the alien ark could be done as easily at night as day. It was even-night, anyway, the night upon which Novato usually did not sleep. She went to find Den-Garios, an old friend from Capital province who had long worked with her on the exodus project. They fetched two fresh lanterns and re-entered the ship, moving quickly down the corridors.

  Soon they were at the intersection marked by the circle of yellow pigment on the wall. Beneath the yellow circle was the ark-maker’s own numerical designation for this intersection. And there, down the perpendicular corridor, just as she’d left it, her sash. Heart pounding, she jogged over to it.

  “Right here,” said Novato, pointing at the wall. “This is where I saw the flashing.”

  Garios was about Novato’s age. He had an unusually long muzzle that gave him a melancholy look, and eyes that were small and close together. He peered at the wall. “I can’t see anything.”

  “No,” said Novato. “The lamp flame must be drowning it out. Here.” She stepped close enough to proffer her lamp to Garios. “Take this and walk down that corridor and go around the bend.”

  Garios set down the roll of leather he’d been carrying, dipped his long muzzle in acknowledgment, and did as Novato had asked. In the darkness, Novato pressed the side of her face against the wall. Nothing. Either the flashing had stopped, or perhaps her eyes hadn’t had enough time to adjust to darkness.

  She waited for a hundred beats, then tried again. Still nothing.

  It had been daytime when she’d been here before. Daytime and the flashing was happening.

  Now it was night, and there was no flashing.

  That made no sense. One lit lights at night, doused them during the day. This was exactly the opposite.

  Suddenly she thought of the matrix of black hexagons on the ship�
�s roof. They conducted heat from the sun somewhere, but only during the day, obviously. Could this have been where that energy was channeled?

  She called Garios back. He came, holding the pair of lamps in front of him, two long shadows following behind.

  “I can’t see the flashing anymore,” Novato said. “Hold the lamps steady, please. I want to examine this wall.”

  Novato turned her back so that Garios couldn’t see what she was about to do, then she forced her claws from their sheaths. Keeping them out of Garios’s view, she felt along the wall, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

  There.

  A seam.

  A juncture where two plates were joined.

  No one had ever found a seam before. The whole ship appeared to have been made inside and out from one continuous piece of blue material.

  Novato used her middle fingerclaw to trace the seam’s height. It came to a right-angle intersection and then continued along about a handspan below the top of the wall. By the time she was finished, Novato had outlined a rectangle going almost from floor to ceiling. Its width was about equal to Novato’s arm-span.

  “No wonder we missed that,” said Garios, his little eyes peering intently. “It’s difficult to see, even with two lamps.”

  Novato nodded. “Maybe this panel was originally painted differently from the rest of the wall,” she said. They’d found colored dust in the ship that seemed to be dried pigment that had peeled off the walls; the blue material wasn’t porous, so paint probably didn’t stick to it well even under the best of circumstances.

  “And where exactly did you see the flashing?” said Garios.

  Novato’s sash was directly below the middle of the rectangle. She pointed to the panel’s center.

  “May I?” said Garios.

  Novato scuttled out of the way. Garios came in, a lamp in each hand, and peered at the wall. “Maybe,” he said at first, and “Maybe” a little later. Then: “Yup, there it is. God, it’s hard to see! But there are little bits of glass inlaid into the wall here, absolutely flush with the wall material. A string of those geometric shapes the ark-makers used for writing. Seven, no, eight shapes. A word.” Garios sighed. “I guess we’ll never know what it said.”