Expendable

by James Alan Gardner

  She sat huddled in the doorway of a glass blockhouse, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs and her face pressed against her knees. The skin of her glass thighs was rainstreaked with half-dry tears.

  My Attempts to Help (Part 2)

  I sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. For a while, neither of us said a word. Then she whispered, “I am very sad, Festina.”

  “I know.”

  “It is not fair to be so sad.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “Nothing is the way it should be.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t speak again, but leaned in toward me. I let her rest her cheek against my chest. I could see straight through the back of her head to the tear-stains dribbled down her face.

  “Eel is not here,” she said at last.

  “So I heard.”

  “And Jelca does not care. He does not care about Eel or me or anything.”

  I leaned over until my lips touched the hard glass hair on the top of her head. “Jelca is quite the shit, isn’t he?”

  “He is extremely much the shit,” she agreed. “Shitty fucking Jelca.”

  “To hell with him,” I said.

  “A very deep hell. With flames and everything.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  I gave her shoulders a squeeze. She reached down and patted my knee. After a moment she said more softly, “I would like to punch him in the nose.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would like to make him feel very bad.”

  “I know,” I told her. “But civilized folks like us don’t hit people.”

  “What do we do?”

  We brood, internalize, and make ourselves miserable, I thought. Aloud I said, “We give ourselves permission to indulge. Like eating something rich, or buying something we can’t afford, or making excuses to get out of work….”

  She looked at me without comprehension.

  “Okay,” I admitted, “maybe those things aren’t right for you. Is there someplace you want to go, something you want to do?”

  “We could go visit ancestors,” she said with sudden interest. “They live next door.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes. It is very fitting that Jelca lives beside the ancestors of this place. They both have bad brains.”

  “And you want to visit…” I didn’t finish my sentence. It would be rude to describe the ancestors as senile near-corpses.

  “It is pleasant inside the ancestors’ home,” Oar said. “It is warm and good.”

  “Ahhhh,” I nodded, understanding. “You realize I can’t go in with you?” I asked.

  Her face fell. “Then maybe…”

  “No,” I stopped her, “you go. If it feels good, you deserve it. I’ll wait outside.”

  “You will not go away?”

  “I promise.”

  We got to our feet and walked arm-in-arm to the next building: an enormous tower, even taller than the sixty-story building where Ullis lived. Unlike other buildings in the city, this one had glass walls I couldn’t see through; they had been opaqued to prevent the radiation inside from leaking out.

  “I will not be long,” Oar promised.

  “Take your time,” I called as she disappeared within. Oar looked eager for time in the tower; I didn’t want her cutting the experience short because of me. It must be like a sauna, I thought—hot and steamy, the chance to lie around languidly….

  Oar barreled out the door, mere seconds after she’d entered. “There is a problem, Festina. The ancestors are very upset.”

  “At you?”

  “No. At you. Come inside.”

  Talking with the Ancestors

  It took some time for Oar to understand that going inside would damage me. I doubt if she really believed it; but she grudgingly agreed to act as intermediary, carrying messages between me and the ancestors to learn what was wrong.

  Me: Why are the ancestors upset?

  [A pause while Oar ducked into the building, asked the question, and got the answer.]

  Oar: Because a fucking Explorer is bothering them.

  Me: Bothering them how?

  [Pause.]

  Oar: Walking over them. Pushing them around. Stacking them against the walls.

  Me: Deliberately trying to hurt them?

  [Pause.]

  Oar: I do not think so, although some of the ancestors pretend they were grievously assaulted. Ancestors are stupid. I think the Explorer was merely clearing them out of the way. There is now a wide path down the middle of the room where the ancestors have been moved aside.

  Me: Where does the path go?

  [Pause.]

  Oar: I followed the path to the central elevator.

  Me: Which means the Explorer was using the elevator for something.

  [Pause for me to think.]

  What did the Explorer look like?

  [Pause.]

  Oar: They say the fucking Explorer was shiny all over.

  Me: I thought so. Look around inside, Oar…close to the door but maybe hidden. See if you can find a shiny suit.

  [Pause. Oar returned with a bundle of silver fabric in her hands.]

  Oar: How did you know this was there? What is it?

  Me: A radiation suit.

  I didn’t mention that the glittery fabric looked like the same material as Jelca’s silvery shirt.

  Into the Tower

  The suit was a sloppy fit on me. Tailored for someone taller: Jelca’s size. It also had a holster attached to the belt. The holster was empty, but it looked like a perfect fit for Jelca’s stun-pistol.

  Unlike other radiation outfits I had worn, this one was comfortably light—no heavy inner lining of lead or one of the transuranics. Still, I had no doubt it would protect me from the tower’s hot-bath of radiation. Jelca must have persuaded the local AI to construct the suit for him—a machine programmed by the League of Peoples would never endanger a life by building inadequate protective gear. Best of all, I knew Jelca was still alive; if he could go inside without being fricasseed by microwaves, I could too.

  Radiation burns might not be a concern but vision was: the suit had no visor, no break at all in the hood covering my head and face. I could see very dimly through the semitransparent fabric, like looking through a window bleary with rain. My view was at most three paces, and then just directly in front of me. I would have to move carefully and hope no one rushed me from the side.

  For caution’s sake, I checked the suit seals one last time, then stepped into the tower. The ancestors had indeed been moved to clear a path into the building—unlike the neatly ordered rows I had seen in Oar’s village, these bodies were piled on top of one another, limbs dangling into each other’s faces. No wonder they were annoyed.

  “It is rude to treat ancestors like this,” Oar whispered. I remembered that back in her own village, she had blithely kicked an ancestor in a fit of pique…but perhaps there was one set of rules for people inside the family and another for those outside.

  “Ask them,” I said, “how long they’ve been like this.”

  She spoke a few words in her native language, enunciating loudly and distinctly as if the ancestors were hard of hearing. Barely audible whispers drifted back from the clutter of bodies.

  “They say a long time,” she told me. “They probably do not know how long. Their brains are too tired to judge such things.”

  A long time…yet none of them had made an effort to move back to their original positions. And Jelca hadn’t moved them back either. Sloppy, I thought—a conscientious Explorer would cover his tracks.

  I turned to Oar. “Tell them we’ll put them back properly in a little while. First, I want to investigate what Jelca was up to.”

  Oar conveyed my message. Meanwhile, I lumbered along the cleared path, wishing I could see better through the suit fabric. Glass bodies were difficult to discern; I worried about stepping on one I had overlooked. That, I supposed, was why Jelca hadn’t dragged everyone
back into place. He had unfinished business in the tower, and didn’t want to trip over bodies every time he came in.

  The path led through one room after another, three rooms of blurred body heaps, until I reached a single elevator in the heart of the building. Its door was open, ready for business; I stepped inside and waited for Oar to join me.

  “Which floor do we want?” she asked.

  “Start at the top and work down.” Whatever Jelca was doing, he seemed to be keeping it secret from the other Explorers. If so, he’d avoid floors near ground level—too much chance of passersby hearing any noise he might make. The city was quiet as death and filled with hard surfaces perfect for echoes; even a small sound carried surprisingly far.

  The elevator closed and we began to ascend—slowly, as if anyone who took this ride had no reason to hurry. People came here to die—not literally perhaps, but that was only a technicality. Those who rode up almost never rode down.

  Cheerful thoughts, Festina. To take my mind off the elevator’s funereal pace, I said to Oar, “You can see better than I can. Could you please check the floor for marks?”

  “What kind of marks?”

  “Any kind. The path Jelca cleared was quite wide—more than he’d need just walking through himself. He might have brought in equipment. Maybe heavy equipment.”

  “Explorers are not strong enough to carry heavy things,” Oar replied smugly.

  “But Explorers can have the local AI build robots to do the work—I saw several suitable haulers at the launch site. Just check, would you?”

  Oar got down on all fours and crawled around, sweeping her fingertips lightly across the floor. “There are some dents here,” she reported. “Not very deep.”

  “Sharp-edged or rounded?”

  “Rounded.”

  Wheels, I thought. That didn’t tell me much; but the marks had to be recent. Like other machinery in the city, this elevator must undergo regular maintenance and rebuilding, courtesy of automated repair systems. Even small dents would warrant attention—otherwise, they might become starting points for rust.

  “All right,” I said, “Jelca brought something here. The question is what.”

  The Second Spare

  The answer was a Sperm-field generator. We found it on the top floor, pushed tight against the wall of the building. I recognized it from a distance, even with my blurred vision: a black box the size and shape of a coffin.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered.

  “Amen,” Oar answered dutifully.

  This had to be a second generator. The first was still installed in the orca starship—I had seen it mere hours before. Callisto had been running diagnostics on the device; it had actually spun a short thread of Sperm for her tests.

  What was Jelca doing with another generator?

  I had no doubts where the machine had come from—it was the second spare from Jelca’s former starship. He must have stolen both generators from the engineering hold, then installed them into separate probes and sent both down to Melaquin. Ullis told me Jelca had flown one probe south by remote control. He must have done the same with the other probe, picking a time when Ullis was busy or asleep. Later, he had retrieved the first generator and turned it over to the Explorers…but he’d kept the other for himself, smuggling it here when the others weren’t watching. (Jelca had been the one to instigate the day/night cycle in lighting. Clever. It ensured the Explorers would all sleep at the same time, thereby giving him a chance to fetch the generator under cover of darkness.)

  But why did he need a second generator? Why did he want it badly enough to steal it, leaving his ship with no backup in case of breakdown? Of course, angry people do strange things; maybe Jelca liked the idea of the Vac crew drifting in space until someone answered their mayday. He might have thought it would give them something to think about after abandoning him on Melaquin—a few weeks of being stranded themselves.

  But if that was his rationale, why hide this generator here? Why not load it onto the whale, as a replacement in case the first generator malfunctioned?

  No. Jelca had plans for this second generator. I just couldn’t guess what those plans were.

  Hampered by my obstructed vision, I examined the black coffin. It was wired into another piece of equipment: a waist-high glass box with wing panels attached to the top. “Photo-collectors,” I murmured. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “What is a photo-collector?” Oar asked.

  “These panels,” I told her, “soak up light and other radiation that hits them…which must be a hefty dose of energy, considering the output of this building. The panels obviously transfer power to a battery inside this case, and the battery supplies the Sperm generator; but damned if I know why. What’s the point of generating a Sperm field on a planet?”

  “Jelca is very very stupid about sperm,” Oar answered.

  I gave her a look she couldn’t see through my suit.

  Cursed with Hope

  Minutes later, we were back on the street. Oar had replaced the suit where she found it, and my skin was rediscovering the joy of breathing; wearing the suit had been like being wrapped in plastic, close and sweaty.

  I had decided not to move the ancestors away from the walls just yet. Oar assured me they were all getting enough light and air, and would scarcely notice a few more hours of overlapping each other. Putting the people back would tip off Jelca that he’d been discovered…and I didn’t want that until I was ready to confront him. At the very least, I had to talk with Ullis first. Maybe the other Explorers needed to know too; but maybe not.

  Maybe Jelca had a sensible explanation for everything.

  I know. I was being foolish. How much more evidence did I need that Jelca had degenerated into a self-centered bastard? Toying with Eel and Oar, then callously discarding them…hiding the generator from his fellow Explorers…giving me the cold shoulder as if I were a Vac-head….

  And yet….

  Since Oar had first told me he was here, I had dreamt about him. Thought about him. Imagined us together. Even earlier, during my years on the Jacaranda, he had crossed my mind now and then…especially when I lay beside some snoring substitute I had taken to bed because desperation got the better of me. Alone with my eggs, I invented fantasies about Jelca: a fellow Explorer I could make love with, not just a convenient Vacuum crew member to slick myself down.

  I had such hopes. Stupid hopes—I knew that. But I had hoped that maybe, losing myself to Jelca would sear off my guilt, burn it away with white heat for just a few seconds. Whom else could I turn to? If I threw myself on another Explorer, or Ullis, or Oar, it would be so hollow, nothing more than drugging myself with sex. But with Jelca it could be different…couldn’t it? He was not just someone within arm’s reach, he was someone I’d thought about, dreamed about….

  I’d even dated him. Twice.

  This sounds so banal now. It embarrasses me. I’d say I was lying to myself, but the lies were so obvious I didn’t believe them, even at the time. Yet I wanted to believe. I wanted to have something with someone somewhere. Who else did I have but Jelca?

  I wondered if Oar was thinking the same thing as we walked down the street in silence: patently false hopes, because the alternative was despair.

  Transport Tunnels

  We found Ullis in her cabin on the whale. She had jacked in to the ship’s system and was programming with fervid intensity.

  “Jelca’s got a second Sperm-field generator,” I said. “Did you know?”

  She blinked without speaking for several long seconds. Then she shook her head.

  It took some time to give her the full story. When I was finished, she could offer no explanation of what he might be doing. “There’s no reason to generate Sperm tails on Melaquin,” she said. “Even if he wanted to set up a transport tunnel…no. What would be the point?”

  “What is a transport tunnel?” Oar asked.

  “A way of sending things very quickly from one place to another,” I answered. �
��A Sperm tail is a long tube of hyperspace…which means it’s really outside our normal universe. Physical laws are very different there. If you stuck your arm in one end of the tube, it would immediately emerge at the other end, even if the ends were thousands of kilometers apart. If you anchored one end here on Melaquin and another on the moon, say, you could reach through, pick up a handful of moon dust, and bring it back just like reaching through an open window.”

  “I wouldn’t reach through that window if I were you,” Ullis said. “If you’re standing with normal Earth air pressure behind you, and the moon’s vacuum in front, you’d go shooting straight through mighty fast.”

  “Which is how we usually transport things along Sperm tails,” I told Oar. “When we go from one ship to another, we drop the pressure at the receiving end so things shoot through from the sender. When we go from the ship to a planet, we increase the pressure in the Transport Bay so that it blows us down…”

  “This is very boring,” Oar interrupted.

  “Also irrelevant,” Ullis said. “If Jelca wants to use a Sperm tail at all, he has to anchor down the far end. Otherwise the tail whips around at random.”

  “We all carry anchors,” I reminded her. Landing parties needed anchors to attract the tail when they wanted to leave the planet. Anchors were small enough to fit in the palm of your hand; I had one in my belt pouch, and no doubt Ullis did too.

  “So Jelca has an anchor,” Ullis conceded. “What’s he going to do with it?”

  “He brought the Sperm generator to this city with a remote-controlled probe drone. If the probe still has fuel, he could load an anchor on board, and fly the probe anywhere on Melaquin.”

  “So what?” Ullis asked. “Yes, he can set up a transport tunnel anywhere on planet, but what’s the point? Why would he want to go somewhere else when he’ll be going home anytime now?”

  “Unless he’s not going home.” The words were out of my mouth before I gave them a second thought.