And then Alhir did not exist.
Harrh blinked, remembered pouring a cup of tea. But he was sitting in the chair, his breakfast before him.
He poured the tea and drank.
He was sitting on rock, amid the grasses blowing gently in the wind, on a clifftop by the sea.
He was standing there. "Mhreihrrinn," he said, in the first chill touch of fear.
But that memory faded. He had never had a wife, nor children. He forgot the house as well.
Trees grew and faded.
Rocks moved at random.
The time-menders were in most instances the only ones who survived even a little while.
Wrenched loose from time and with lives rooted in many parts of it, they felt it first and lived it longest, and not a few were trapped in back-time and did not die, but survived the horror of it and begot children who further confounded the time-line.
Time, stretched thin in possibilities, adjusted itself.
He was Harrh.
But he was many possibilities and many names.
In time none of them mattered.
He was many names; he lived. He had many bodies; and the souls stained his own.
In the end he remembered nothing at all, except the drive to live.
And the dreams.
And none of the dreams were true.
III
"Is it easy to get your first story published?"
"Why?" I ask. It is computer games tonight in the rec room. I am quite good at the ones which involve blowing up things and very bad at the word games. My mind goes on holiday when I am not writing, and declares moratorium in logic. "Are you thinking of writing one?"
"Oh, no. I just wondered whether it's easy."
"It isn't. Or if it is, and it happens too soon, you don't have all the calluses you need. And you can get hurt. Writing is a risky business." We are some time into our acquaintance. We have passed from that intimacy of strangers into a different kind of truth. "Too, sometimes a story just misbehaves. Sometimes one seems to turn out at an inconvenient length, or the topic isn't fashionable. An inexperienced writer is most likely to do a story that's over-long or too short. . . and of course in the inscrutable justice of the System, a new writer is also the least likely to get an odd-length story published. Sometimes a young writer can be very naive about the system. There was a story I wrote back in the sixties, in the hope I could get it serialized in a major magazine. Now, there's really about as much chance of a break-in writer doing that as there is of a particular star out there going nova while we watch.
"And to compound matters, I sent a half-page summary to the magazine in question and asked them if they wanted it on that basis. They said what any sane editors would have said. No. So I tossed it into the drawer, since I had arrived at sanity in the meanwhile and knew my chances."
"Just gave up?"
"I had two novels circulating. I pinned my hopes on those. One eventually made it. Rewritten, to be sure. But, no, I never gave up on this story. I thought about making it into a novel and I'd take it out and try now and again. Now I tell you a truth about what this age and the system has done to storytellers— we're prisoners of bookcovers. Bookcovers must come along at just exactly such a time so a certain number of books will fit into a rack and cost a certain amount. So people who have a long tale to tell have to interrupt it with a great many bookcovers (and re-explanations) and alas, if you birth a tale inconveniently small you'll spend as much creativity finding a home for it as it took to write it in the first place.
"But sometimes there is a story, as an old tale used to say quite properly, just so long and no longer.
"So 'Companions' never grew and never shrank; and it languished in that drawer until someone had just the right space for it. Also rewritten, of course. It's a ghost story. Of sorts."
"Fantasy?"
"Science fiction."
"Perceptions again?"
"In a way." I lose a playing-piece and am regenerated on the screen. "I was rather fond of the concept. Count the characters when you've read it. Tell me how many there are—except the beginning."
"Tricks."
"It's perceptions, remember."
1984
COMPANIONS
1
The ship lay behind them, improbable in so rich a land, so earthlike a world, a silver egg in paradise, an egg more accustomed to stellar distances, to crouching on barren, hellish moons, probing for whatever she could find, her people and her brain calculating survival margins for potential bases— whether mining and manufacture might be enough, given x number of ship-calls per year, to make development worth the while, for ships on their way to Somewhere, as a staging point for humans on their way to Somewhere in the deep.
Somewheres were much, much rarer. . . and this was one, this was more than a marginal Somewhere, this eden.
No indication of habitation, no response to an orbiting ship; no readings on close scan, not a geometry anywhere on the surface but nature's own work.
An Earth unpopulated, untouched, unclaimed.
Green and lush through the faceplates. . . a view that changed slowly as Warren turned, as he faced from open plain to forest to distant mountains. Sea lay a little distance away. The sky was incredible, Filtered blue. Three other white-suited figures walked ungainly through the grass. The sounds of breathing came through the suit-corn, occasional comments, panted breaths interspersed: the gear weighed them down on this world. The ship kept talking to them, forlorn, envious voices of those duty-bound inside, to the four of them out here.
"Makes no sense," Harley said, disembodied, through the com. "No insects. No birds. You can't have an ecology like this with no animate life."
"Take your samples," Burlin's voice said, dimmer. The captain, Burlin. He stood to make himself that one find that would assure an old age in comfort. For the younger rest of them, promise of prime assignments, of comforts for the ship, of the best for the rest of their lives. They escorted Harley out here—Harley who told them what to gather, Harley whose relays were to the labs back on the ship, the real heart of the probe's operations.
Nothing was wrong with the world. The first air and soil samples Anne's intakes had gathered had shown them nothing amiss; the pseudosome had come out, stood, silver and invulnerable to chance, and surveyed the find with robotic eyes, as incapable of joy as suited human bodies were of appreciating the air and the wind that swayed the grasses. There might be perfumes on the wind, but the instruments read a dispassionate N, CO2, O finding, a contaminant readout, windspeed, temperature.
They gathered whole plants and seeds, tiny scoops of soil, a new world's plunder. Every species was new, and some were analogous to kinds they knew: bearded grasses, smooth-barked bushes with slick green leaves. Paul Warren dug specimens Harley chose and sealed the bags, recorded the surrounds with his camera, labeled and marked with feverish enthusiasm.
"Harley?" That was Sax. Warren looked around at Harley, who sat down from a crouch in the grass, heard someone's breathing gone rapid. "You all right, Harley?"
"It's hot," Harley said. "I don't think my system's working right."
Burlin walked back to him. Warren did, too, stuffing his samples into the bag at his belt. It was an awkward business, trying to examine another suit's systems, tilting the helmet. Sun glared on the readout plate, obscuring the numbers for the moment. Harley shifted his shoulder and it cleared. "All right," Warren said. "The system's all right."
"Maybe you'd better walk back," Burlin said to Harley. "We're nearly done out here anyway."
Harley made a move toward rising, flailed with a gloved hand, and Sax caught it, steadied him on the way up.
Harley's knees went, suddenly, pitching him face down. "Check the airflow," Burlin said. Warren was already on it.
"No problem there." He tried to keep panic out of his voice. "Harley?"
"He's breathing." Burlin had his hand on Harley's chest. He gathered up Harley's arm, hauled it over his shoulder, a
nd Warren got the other one.
It was a long way back, dragging a suited man's weight. "Get the pseudosome out," Burlin ordered into the welter of questions from the ship. "Get us help out here."
It came before they had gotten halfway to the ship, a gleam in the dark square of Anne's grounded lift tube bay, a human-jointed extension of the ship coming out for them, planting its feet carefully in the uncertain footing of the grass. It was strength. It was comfort. It came walking the last distance with silver arms outstretched, the dark visor of its ovoid head casting back the sun.
They gave Harley to it, positioning its program-receptive arms, told it lift-right, and the right arm came up, so that it carried Harley like a baby, like a silver sexless angel carrying a faceless shape of a man back to the ship. They followed, plodding heavily after, bearing the burden of their own suits and feeling the unease that came with unknown places when things started going wrong.
It was bright day. There were no threats, no unstable terrain, no threat of weather or native life. But the sunlight seemed less and the world seemed larger and ominously quiet for so much life on its face.
They brought Harley inside, into the airlock. The pseudosome stood still as the hatch closed and sealed. "Set down, Anne," Burlin said, and the pseudosome reversed the process that had gathered Harley up, released him into their arms. They laid him on the floor.
Harley moved, a febrile stirring of hands and head, a pawing at the helmet collar. "Get the oxygen," Burlin said, and Warren ignored the queries coming rapid-fire from the crew inside the ship, got up and opened the emergency panel while Sax and Burlin stripped off the helmet. He brought the oxy bottle, dropped to his knees and clamped the clear mask over Harley's white, sweating face. Harley sucked in great breaths, coughed, back arching in the cumbersome suit. Red blotches marked his throat, like heat. "Look at that," Sax said. The blotches were evident on Harley's face, too, fine hemorrhaging about the cheeks, about the nose and mouth beneath the plastic.
Burlin stood up, hit the decontamination process. The UV came on. The rest of the procedure sequenced in the lock. Burlin knelt. Harley was breathing shallowly now. "He couldn't have gotten it out there," Warren said. "Not like this, not this fast. Not through the suit."
"Got to get the ship scoured out," Burlin said. "Yesterday, the day before—something got past the lock."
Warren looked up. . . at the pseudosome.
The processing cut off. The lights went back to normal. Warren looked at Harley, up at Burlin. "Captain—are we going to bring him in?"
"We do what we can. We three. Here. In the lock."
Harley's head moved, restlessly, dislodging the mask. Warren clamped it the more tightly.
Before he died it took the three of them to hold him. Harley screamed, and clawed with his fingers, and beat his head against the decking. Blood burst from his nose and mouth and drowned the oxy mask, smeared their suits in his struggles. He raved and called them by others' names and cursed them and the world that was killing him. When it was over, it was morning again, but by then another of the crew had complained of fever. Inside the ship.
They went to every crevice of the ship, suited, with UV light and steam-borne disinfectant, nightmare figures meeting in fog, in the deep places, among conduits and machines.
Everywhere, the com: "Emergency to three; we've got another—"
Deep in the bowels of the ship, two figures, masked, carrying cannisters, obscured in steam:
"It isn't doing any good," Abner said. There was panic in his voice, a man who'd seen crew die before, on Mortifer and Hell. "Ten of us already—"
"Shut up, Abner," Warren said, with him, in the dark of Anne's depths. Steam hissed, roared from the cannisters; disinfectant dripped off griddings, off railings and pipe. "Just shut it up."
Corn's voice faltered, rose plaintive through the roar: "We're not getting any response out of 2a. Is somebody going to check on that? Is there somebody going to check that out?"
There was chaos in the labs, tables unbolted, cots used while they could be; pallets spread when they ran out of those. The raving lay next to the comatose; death came with hemorrhage, small at first, and worse. Lungs filled, heart labored, and the vessels burst. Others lingered, in delirium.
"Lie down," Sikutu said—biologist, only sometime medic, tried to help the man, to reason where there was no reason.
"I've got work to do," Sax cried, wept, flailed his arms. "I've got work—"
Smith held him, a small woman, pinned an arm while Sikutu held the other. "Hush, hush," she said. "You've got to lie still—Sax, Sax—"
"They all die," Sax said, as he wept. "I've got work to do. I've got to get back to the lab—/ don't want to die—"
He set others off, awakened the sleeping, got curses, screams from others.
"Don't want to die," he sobbed.
Sikutu shook at him, quieted him at last, sat down and held his head in his hands. He felt fevered, felt short of breath.
His pulse increased. But maybe that was fear.
Rule was dead. Warren found her in Botany, among the plants she loved, lying in a knot next to one of the counters. He stared, grieved in what shock there was left to feel. There was no question of life left. There was the blood, the look of all the others. He turned his face away, leaned against the wall where the com unit was, pressed the button.
"Captain, she's dead, all right. Botany One."
There was silence for a moment. "Understood," Burlin's voice came back. It broke. Another small silence. "The pseudosome's on its way."
"I don't need it. She doesn't weigh much."
"Don't touch her."
"Yes, sir." Warren pushed the button, broke the contact, leaned there with his throat gone tight. The dying screamed through the day and night, audible through the walls of sickbay on lower deck, up the air shafts, up the conduits, like the machinery sounds.
This had been a friend.
The lift worked, near the lab; he heard it, heard the metal footsteps, rolled his eyes toward the doorway as Anne herself came in. . . shining metal, faceless face, black plastic face with five red lights winking on and off inside; black plastic mirroring the lab on its oval surface, his own distorted form.
"Assistance?" Anne asked.
"Body." He pointed off at Rule. "Dispose."
Anne reoriented, stalked over and bent at the waist, gripped Rule's arm. The corpse had stiffened. Motors whirred; Anne straightened, hauling the body upright; another series of whirrings: brought her right arm under Rule's hips, lifted, readjusted the weight. A slow shuffling turn.
Warren stepped aside. Anne walked, hit the body against the doorframe in trying to exit. Warren put out his hand, sickened by this further horror, but Anne tilted the body, passed through and on.
He followed, down the hall, to Destruct. . . utilitarian, round-sealed door. Danger, it said. Warning. They used it for biological wastes. For dangerous samples. For more mundane things.
For their dead, down here.
He opened the hatch. Anne put the body in, small, insectile adjustments like a wasp. Froze, then, arms lowering, sensor-lights winking out. Warren closed the door, dogged it down. He pushed the button, winced at the explosive sound, wiped his face. His hands were shaking. He looked at Anne,
"Decontaminate yourself," he said. The lights came on inside the mask. The robot moved, reoriented to the hall, walked off into the dark farther down the hall: no lights for Anne. She needed none.
Warren's belly hurt. He caught his breath. Decontaminate. He headed for the showers, faithful to the regs. It was a thing to do; it kept a man from thinking, held out promises of safety. Maybe the others had let down.
He showered, vapored dry, took clean coveralls from the common locker, sat down on the bench to pull on his boots. His hands kept shaking. He kept shivering even after dressing. Fear. It's fear.
An alarm sounded, a short beep of the Klaxon, something touched that should not have been, somewhere in the ship. He stopped
in mid-tug, heard the crash and whine of the huge locks at Anne's deep core. Someone was using the cargo airlock. He stood up, jammed his foot into the second boot, started for the door.
"All report." He heard the general order, Burlin's voice. He went to the com by the door and did that, name and location: "Paul Warren, lower-deck showers."
Silence.
"Captain?"
Silence.
Panic took him. He left the shower room at a run, headed down the corridor to the lift, rode it up to topside, raced out again, down the hall, around the corner into the living quarters, through it to the bridgeward corridor.
Locked. He pushed the button twice, tried the com above it. "Captain." He gasped for air. "Captain, it's Warren. Was that Abner, then?"
Silence. He fumbled his cardkey from his pocket, inserted it into the slot under the lock. It failed. He slammed his fist onto the com.
"Captain?—Sikutu, Abner, is anyone hearing me?"
Silence still. He turned and ran back down the short corridor, through the mainroom, back toward the lift.
"Warren?" the com said. Burlin's voice.
Warren skidded to a stop, scrambled back to the nearest com unit and pushed the button. "Captain, Captain, what's going on?"
"I'm not getting any word out of sickbay," Burlin said. "I've sent the pseudosome in. Something's happened there."
"I'm going."
Silence.
Warren caught his breath, ran for the lift and rode it down again. Silence in the lower corridor too. He looked about him. "Abner? Abner, are you down here?"
No answer to the hail. Nothing. A section seal hissed open behind him. He spun about, caught his balance against the wall.
Anne was there in the dark. The pseudosome strode forward, her red lights glowing.
Warren turned and ran, faster than the robot, headed for the lab.
Quarantine, it said. No entry. He reached the door, pressed the com. "Sikutu. Sikutu, it's Warren. Are you all right in there?"
The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh Page 27
