Expendable

by James Alan Gardner

  “What happened to your admiral?” I asked.

  “YouthBoost meltdown,” Jelca answered with a shrug. “The usual fate of the scum who are sent here—they’re old and fat and ready to fall apart as soon as they’re cut off the teat. They keel over and problem solved…except for us Explorers, stuck in this hellhole.”

  “It is not a hellhole,” Oar growled. “Melaquin is an excellent planet!”

  “Sure,” Jelca said. “Everything a man could want.” He gave me a sideways glance. “That’s why the council gets away with it, you know…why the League lets them get away with it. To an alien, there’s nothing wrong with dropping Explorers on Melaquin; what other planet in the galaxy is better suited for human life? Depositing us here is damned safer than assigning us to explore a subzero ice-world or thousand degree inferno. Melaquin is a paradise for our species. When the council maroons us here, the League probably thinks it’s a favor. Forget that we’re cut off from civilization, forget that we’ll never see our friends and family—”

  “Your friends and family are probably very stupid,” Oar interrupted. “Festina is very bored with the way you complain and wishes you would talk about something else.”

  Jelca gave a humorless laugh. “Sorry to bore you, Festina.” He turned to Oar. “What do you think Festina would rather talk about?”

  “She would rather talk about my stupid sister, Eel.”

  “What about her?” Jelca asked.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s your sister,” Jelca said. “If you don’t know where she is, why should I?” Before Oar could react, he gave her hand an ungentle tug. “Enough talk. I can smell supper and it’s making me hungry.”

  The First Supper

  The next few hours were an exhausting jumble.

  I met the other Explorers—some familiar to me, but many stranded on Melaquin long before I was drafted into the Fleet.

  I let people go through my pack: the candy rations I hadn’t yet touched, the entertainment bubbles I’d brought because I had room, the odds and ends of equipment that might be used in the spaceship. There are no words to describe the joy of the female Explorers when they found my first aid kit contained two dozen menstruation swatches.

  I told my story: the parts I wanted to tell anyway. I did not describe how Yarrun died; besides, the others were more interested in the lark-plane we’d left outside. One of the older men, a gray-haired Divian named Athelrod, headed out immediately to inspect the craft…on the hunt for spare parts he could cannibalize.

  I vacillated between the urge to distance myself from Oar and the desire to keep her in close check. She was the only Melaquin native now in the city, apart from numerous towers of dormant ancestors. All other natives had left years earlier, peeved at some unspecified quarrel with the Explorers. (“You don’t want to hear about that,” scoffed a woman called Callisto.)

  I asked about Chee and Seele. None of the other Explorers had been in the city that long ago, but they’d learned from the glass populace that two “uglies” had flown away in a glass bumblebee.

  Lastly, I toured the orca ship. As Walton said, it was close to completion, especially if my lark-plane contained the parts they were looking for. “Then again,” said Callisto, “it’s been close to completion for the past twenty-eight years.”

  Or for the past four thousand years—the sticking point was what you required as an acceptable level of safety. No one doubted the ship could successfully take off; the only question was how far it would get. Out of the atmosphere? Certainly. But far enough into space to be rescued by a League vessel? That was the crucial point of debate.

  How much food and air would you need to get to the nearest trade lanes? How much fuel would it take? No one knew. So the Explorers had passed their time tinkering: an enhancement here, an increased efficiency there, but no breakthrough so overwhelming that they could state with confidence, “Now we stand a good chance of making it.”

  Then came Jelca: resourceful, angry Jelca. Like other Explorers, he had received what Tobit called “the tip”—a hint he would soon be marooned on Melaquin and a suggestion of which continent he should choose for a Landing. Jelca hadn’t wasted time in brooding or futile attempts at mutiny. Instead, he had taken direct action. While other Explorers reacted to the tip by packing more supplies or personal keepsakes, Jelca had stolen a Sperm-field generator.

  Every ship carries two extra generators, in case of malfunction. They are not large as ship equipment goes—black boxes the size of coffins, each weighing two hundred kilos. With the aid of a robot hauler, Jelca smuggled a spare generator out of the engineering hold and into a planetary probe drone. Of course, he had to remove most of the drone’s sensing equipment to make room for the generator; but he considered that an unimportant tradeoff. He barely finished the work in time; almost immediately, he and Ullis received orders to escort the bribe-taking admiral on an “investigative mission” to Melaquin.

  From that point on, Jelca’s theft was easy: he sent out the rigged probe as part of the preliminary survey; and he arranged that the probe landed softly in a spot he could find later. Some time after the Landing, when he had reached Oar’s village and heard the looped message about the city in the mountains, Jelca reactivated the probe and flew it south by remote control. He and Ullis still had to travel to the city by foot, but when they got there, the stolen generator was waiting for them.

  As easy as that. A Sperm-field generator meant FTL flight—it meant the difference between limping out of the system after five to ten years of relativistic travel, or getting home in two weeks. It was still an engineering challenge to mount the generator on the whale; but with so many Explorers in the city, they had ample brainpower to focus on the problem. They also had an AI here like the one I’d met in Tobit’s town: a source of tools and components, even if the AI occasionally decided the Explorers had to manufacture particular pieces of equipment themselves.

  Three years had passed since Jelca arrived with the generator; now the ship was ready. Some people talked as if it might take off tomorrow. Others contended the ship needed months of shakedown before departure. Within a few minutes, both camps were appealing to me as a disinterested party: someone who hadn’t talked herself hoarse in the go-now-or-wait debates that had dominated every mealtime for a dozen weeks. Before I could say stop, I was barraged with measurements and test results, pages of figures and diagrams which both sides claimed would prove their point….

  Then Ullis said, “She’s a zoology specialist,” and the debaters lost interest in me.

  Ullis

  Unlike Jelca, Ullis Naar had greeted me warmly when I arrived at the Explorers’ mess. She hugged me; she recognized Oar immediately and hugged her too. Since Jelca looked like he wanted to run off and eat by himself, Ullis took me around to meet everyone. “This is Festina Ramos and yes, she’s one of us even if she looks gorgeous.”

  (I had explained about the artificial skin. She said she was happy for me, and she meant it. Her own problem was still much in evidence: blink, blink, blink every second or so, some blinks so heavy they twitched all the way to her shoulders. I found myself feeling sorry for her…feeling pity. It was a patronizing, “Oh the poor dear” kind of pity, and it scared me. I’d never before felt condescension for another Explorer.)

  Ullis was the one who described how Jelca had obtained the Sperm-field generator; Jelca stood by silently as she spoke, as if the story were about someone else. Later, when lights throughout the city dimmed to dusk, Ullis explained that the dimming was Jelca’s work too. He wanted a true day/night cycle rather than the city’s eternal glimmer, so he had tracked down the control center and rewired some circuits. Perhaps, I thought, that change had been the impetus which spurred the glass populace into leaving. People who photosynthesize may not take kindly to strangers turning the lights off.

  The arrival of night didn’t quiet the Explorers’ mess. The others were eager for news from home, gossip about the Fleet, updates on th
e lives of friends they had once known…but at last Ullis said, “Enough. Festina needs sleep. We all do.”

  I agreed. With good-nights all around, Ullis and I detached ourselves from the company and went into the silent city. I might not have been so quick to go if Oar and Jelca had been there, but they had left much earlier—Oar bored with Explorer talk, and Jelca because Oar took his hand and pulled him away. I had not been able to read the expression on Jelca’s face as he walked out with her: neither happy nor sad, neither fearing time alone with her nor looking forward to it. Whatever Oar wanted from him, I doubted she would get it.

  Ullis led me away from the central square, a few blocks’ walk to a tower where she had claimed an apartment on the sixtieth floor. The city was dark now—only a few distant lights showing where Explorers had staked territory in other buildings. The lights were widely spaced from each other: people who live in glass houses don’t want close neighbors. On the other hand, solid glass walls give a breathtaking view from sixty storeys up.

  Ullis came in beside me as I stood on her glassed-in balcony, looking out over the city. “So,” she said. “Home sweet home.” She paused. She blinked. “You’re welcome to stay here if you like. Roommates again.”

  “I don’t want to put you out.”

  “No trouble.” She blinked, then laughed. “I may get sick of you eventually, but at the moment I’m nostalgic for Academy days.”

  “Isn’t everyone.”

  She turned to look at me. Her shoulder leaned against the exterior glass; beyond her, the city was as black as space. “I’m sorry about Yarrun. I liked him.”

  “Me too.”

  She waited. I said nothing more.

  Finally she said, “I’m also sorry about Jelca.”

  “What about Jelca?”

  “That he’s become such a prick. I know you used to like him.”

  “That was just a schoolgirl thing,” I muttered.

  “He liked you too,” she said. “When he and I were partners on the Hyacinth, he talked about you. A bit. He never opened up, but I think he regretted…you know, not seeking you out. But he didn’t understand why you ran from that second date, and he was too proud to chase after a freshman…. Well, too proud, too shy, what’s the difference? Testosterone, one way or the other. But he did think about you after.”

  I shrugged. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Sure.” She regarded me sympathetically. “I saw the look on your face when he and Oar left together….”

  “I didn’t have a look on my face.”

  Ullis blinked several times. Maybe she was doing it on purpose. Finally she said, “The hard thing for Jelca was being so close to normal. You understand? If he put on a wig, he was there. Not for long, maybe four hours before the lesions started bleeding, but for those four hours, he had it. He could walk down any street without stares. He could go on dates with real people. Yes, his scalp took weeks to heal, but if he wanted those four hours, he could have them. He could get clear. And that made him a little crazy—like he wasn’t in the same boat as the rest of us. He never said it in so many words, but I was his partner; I could tell. Jelca never identified himself as an Explorer. I think sometimes he wanted to. Maybe if things had gone differently between the pair of you…but that was all part of it anyway. He couldn’t bring himself to connect with another Explorer.

  “I know that makes him sound arrogant,” Ullis added hurriedly, “but it wasn’t that way. Not at first. He just felt out of place. Miscategorized. And then, when he learned he’d be marooned on Melaquin—treated like an Explorer, and like a criminal—he felt unjustly betrayed. Like someone had personally spit on him. That’s why he had the nerve to steal the Sperm-field generator. I’ve never asked what he did to get it, but I think he hurt someone. You know what it’s like in Ship’s Engineering; there’s always someone around. They wouldn’t let Jelca walk off with important equipment like that. I don’t know for sure—maybe he took down some people with that souped-up stunner of his. But he was just so wounded that the council would treat him like any other Explorer…just as worthless, just as expendable….”

  “Ullis,” I said, “didn’t you feel wounded and betrayed too?”

  “Sure. But I am an Explorer—and Melaquin is where Explorers end up. In a weird way, I feel fulfilled. I did my job. I stayed true. And because of that, I am fiercely connected with every other member of the corps.”

  I wanted to deny what she was saying; but I couldn’t. However furious I might be with the High Council, some part of my mind whispered it was fitting to get dumped into the disposal chute called Melaquin.

  An Explorer’s life has only one proper ending: Oh Shit. And Melaquin was the Oh Shit you could walk away from.

  Bad Times

  “So,” Ullis continued, “when Jelca woke up on Melaquin…no, I shouldn’t pretend I can see inside his head. I just know it was bad. He came close to killing Kalovski—that was the admiral we were escorting. I had to talk Jelca into going away for a few days, until he cooled off. In the meantime, I dealt with Kalovski…which means I watched him die. That was pretty awful.”

  “Yes,” I murmured.

  She waited for me to say more, but I didn’t.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “by the time I rendezvoused with Jelca, he’d already met Eel and Oar. You can imagine how I worried about that—not that I cared how he ran his love life, but two women, with minds like children…” She shook her head. “And back then, they couldn’t even speak our language. I tried to talk some scruples into him, but he wouldn’t listen. He said he was exploring what the planet had to offer. Whenever I could get the women alone, I tried to find out how they felt about the whole business; frankly, I may have taught them more English than Jelca did. But it was obvious they were infatuated with him. He was the first non-dormant male they had ever met. And they were so bored and lonely before he arrived, they were putty in his hands.”

  “Both of them?” I asked. “Oar tells the story differently now.”

  “She would,” Ullis replied, “considering how Jelca walked out on them. When we were ready to head south, I was willing to take Eel and Oar with us—not that I thought it was healthy for them to stay with him, but if they wanted to come, I wouldn’t leave them behind. Jelca wanted to disappear without a word…selfish bastard. So I grabbed Eel, told her what was happening, and left her alone with Jelca so the two of them could work it out. I would have done the same with Oar, but I couldn’t find her; she was probably out clearing fields to impress him.” Ullis shook her head morosely.

  “What happened between Eel and Jelca?” I asked.

  “I don’t know—I stayed down on the beach while they talked up on the bluffs. Eventually, Jelca came down alone and announced neither Eel nor Oar were coming with us. They preferred to stay in their home village. There had to be more to it, of course; he’d probably screamed at Eel until she let him go. But I decided the women were better off without him, and maybe it was best to leave before they changed their minds.”

  “So Eel didn’t go with you?”

  “No.” Ullis looked at me, puzzled. “Why would you think that?”

  “Oar said you took her. Oar believed the three of you went away together.”

  I pictured Eel and Jelca alone on the bluffs that day three years ago. Jelca spurning her. Eel no more than a broken hearted little girl…and never seen again.

  Oh Shit.

  Part XVI

  Mania

  My Attempts to Help (Part 1)

  The next day, I tried to help with the spaceship. There was little for me to do; the ship was almost finished, and the few tasks outstanding were one-person jobs that required “technical sophistication”…which is to say, someone who knew what she was doing.

  No matter where I went in search of something to do, people ribbed me for being a zoology specialist. Everyone brought it up. After a while, it took an effort to smile at the jibes. I told myself I was just new—oldtimers often tease new arriv
als as a gruff form of welcome. It didn’t help that I’d shown up after the hard work was done. “Oho, here’s the animal lover, just in time to play inspector.” They said it jokingly; I tried to hear it that way too.

  I told myself there was no genuine resentment under the laughter: resentment for a woman who didn’t look like an Explorer.

  At meals, I felt people staring.

  Three times Ullis told me, “You look really good, Festina.”

  The one time I saw Jelca during the day, he said nothing at all.

  Stop imagining things, I told myself. They don’t care what I look like…and even if they do, it’s their problem, not mine.

  Sure.

  To pass the time, I outfitted another cabin inside the whale: carrying in a cot, bolting it to the floor, stashing unneeded equipment from my backpack into a locker. It was all for appearance’s sake—I couldn’t escape with the others. If I caught a ride in the ship, the League would stop my heart in flight, the same way they terminated any non-sentient creature trying to escape into space. They might even take retribution on the other Explorers for helping me. On the other hand, I had to go through the motions, or someone might start asking questions.

  Anyway, another furnished cabin wouldn’t hurt anything; the whale had plenty of space. Ullis said the life support systems could handle two hundred people indefinitely, and the food synthesizers had even more capacity. No one knew why the early generations of Melaquin had bothered making a ship so huge. Had they wanted to leave the planet enmasse…maybe even return to Earth? Or had they simply fancied a jaunt into space: a sightseeing tour around the moon and back?

  The other Explorers had no interest in speculation. Even Ullis excused herself after breakfast, saying she had programming to do—simulation tests and so on. No, she didn’t need help…it would take too long to get me up to speed on what she was doing.

  By midafternoon, I felt glumly extraneous: sorry for myself and irritated at that weakness. Rather than mope where someone might notice, I slipped away from the launch site and headed into the city. Athelrod and others were still going over the lark-plane; maybe they needed help carrying back salvaged components. I began to retrace the route Oar and I had taken in from the elevator…but I had only reached the point where we first saw Jelca when I came across Oar herself.