Rogue Powers

by Roger MacBride Allen

  Lucy felt her heart pounding. She knew, somehow she knew, that she was at the crux of everything, at the threshold of the central feat of being an Outposter, a Z'ensam. And she also knew that there was danger, terrible danger, in the knowledge. "Our apologies, C'astille. Charlie wasn't clear on why I was asking such things," she said in a gentle, quiet voice. "Tell me something. Tell me the life cycle of the Z'ensam. Tell me it as if I knew nothing. Tell me the way you'd explain it to a child."

  C'astille stared at Lucy for a long moment. "There is a rhyme for young ones," she said at last. "Well, let me try and recite the sense of it in English for Charlie's benefit:

  "First there are babies, to play and learn.

  Then the adults, to bear young, reason, and teach.

  Then the adult is taken by Division in the cocoon s fast

  womb. At last, the implanter, more foolish than any child, is

  flown from its cocoon, reason having flown long ago. Bewitched by the implanter, the adult makes children,

  and so the middle link joins end with beginning."

  Lucy said "C'astille, I think I understand. But there must be no mistakes. The time has come when we must risk knowing each other, even if we don't like what we find. Tell me."

  "You are right. That poem is so cryptic that I must say more. Especially to aliens. But, please, this is very difficult for me, for any Z'ensam, to speak of. Your medicine is polite conversation by comparison! So—each individual goes through the phases—child, born to adult. Adult, such as myself. There is no clear line between child and adult. One day it is recognized that a child has learned enough. It was a proud day when I was called C'astille and not O'astille, O' being the name-prefix of a child. The name prefixes are based on social status, by the way, not biological state. Someday, I will be M'astille, and then perhaps D'astille. I am still young, and there are perhaps thirty of your years before I must face the process of Division, the next biological phase. When Division comes, it takes only a few days. The first sign is a long red welt that forms down the length of the body.

  "That is the sign for a Z'ensam to find a safe place. The body—collapses. The skin turns rock-hard to protect against predators. Internally, the body—I do not know a better English word—the body digests itself, reforms itself. Only a very small fraction of the body weight emerges from the body-cocoon, as an implanter.

  "These implanters, then—when they find an adult who is ready to bear young, they—they come to that adult, join with the adult. They place within the adult their seed, which combines with the adult's seed, and grows into children, born some months later. When the implanter comes for you it is a terrible and debasing experience. It has only happened a few times to me, and as yet I have no children. But, when the implanter comes you are compelled, by feelings and sensations strong beyond imagining, to submit and cooperate. Nature would have it so, or else the Z'ensam would be no more. But be it unavoidable, be it beyond our control, be it necessary, we find it shameful to be taken so by the mindless implanters, and mortifying to know we will one day be like them. So we do not fault the Nihilists overmuch for offering escape.

  "That is our way. I have gradually realized your way is different. Now you must explain it."

  A thousand thoughts flashed through Lucy's mind, and she wished desperately for a chance to talk with Charlie privately. But C'astille was already suspicious; another humans-only chat would make it seem as if they were lying, trying to make up a story.

  But no wonder the 'Posters didn't understand the male/ female dichotomy. Each 'Poster was first sentient female— adult—and later non-sentient male—implanter—in turn. Whether or not you had a mind was more important in defining yourself than what shape your genitals were. Female/male was submerged under thinking/nonthinking. Lucy knew how careful she would have to be in her answer. "It is quite different. One is born either an immature adult or immature implanter. In either case, one grows up, lives and dies as one or the other. The two kinds come together, as you two kinds do, and the adults bear the children, usually only one at a time."

  There was a strange, half envious, half-astonished tone to C'astille's voice when she responded. "You—you adults. You never lose the power of thought? You remain sane and wise all your lives?"

  "The vast majority do. But as the body ages and wears out, occasionally the brain, the seat of the mind, wears out as well, and in such cases the mind weakens with the brain. But this is much rarer than it once was." The moment Lucy had finished the last sentence, she wished she had withheld it

  " 'Less often' thanks to your wonderful medicine, no doubt," C'astille said bitterly. She shook her head, a human mannerism she had picked up. "Whatever god formed your kind was kindlier than our creators. My life, my culture, my people, are formed, warped, distorted by the certainty that madness and idiocy will overtake any who do not choose to flee the world by suicide. To have the foreknowledge that I would stay sane ..."

  "C'astille." Charlie spoke, for the first time in a long time. Philosophy was all very well, but they needed more hard facts. Where the hell were the males? "I would like to ask for something, a favor. It might not be possible for you to do it, or it might be painful or distasteful for you. If so, I withdraw the request. But I would like to see one of your kind in the implanter phase."

  The skin on the Outposter's head wrinkled up in humorless amusement. "Then you have seen them and not known it. Did you not know what they were, Lucy? Did you not wonder why we kept them around? Come, I will show you." Abruptly, she got to her feet and trotted off into the underbrush, forcing the humans to scramble after to keep up. "Let me ask you another two words I never quite learned, Lucy." C'astille stared straight ahead, not looking back at her companions, and there was a brittle sharpness to her voice. "The adult who gave birth to me, what is the English for that? And what would you call the responsible implanter."

  Lucy ran to catch up, drew up alongside C'astille's head. In a low, hushed, voice, Lucy said "Mother. The English is mother. And the implanter who joined with her to form you—that would be your father."

  "Ah. I see. Thank you." C'astille slowed her pace slightly. "We'll be there in a few minutes."

  Lucy trudged along in her armored pressure-suit cocoon, shielded from the stench and the dangers of Outpost, only the visual beauty of the day able to penetrate to her. She felt tired, ashamed, guilty, appalled. Madness! Madness, idiocy, and the foreknowledge of coming madness and idiocy the common lot of every person. Nature, Earth's kindly Mother Nature, had shielded her children far better. Could humans have built a culture if their biological heritage had been as cruel as the Z'ensams'? The caravans, the fledgling cities, the tiny population that wouldn't—no, she realized, couldn't control the rapacious Hungry Ones. Those were accomplishments to rival anything humans had done, in the face of such a mocking, demeaning life cycle.

  C'astille led them into a tiny glade. "They like this place, when we camp here. It is near us, and yet they can play undisturbed. They will be nearby." C'astille raised her head and let out a strange, high-pitched keening.

  It took Lucy a second or two to recognize that call. That was the sound they used to call the—

  And there they were. Stumblebugs. Wings flapping, coming from all around them, fluttering down to landings in the grass. The laughing, giggling comedians, the silly pets the Z'ensam kept, the pretty, multi-colored, cat-sized flying beasts that Lucy had loved to play with, the cute little things that knew a word or two of 0-1. Lucy had even taught a few of them a word or two of English.

  She recognized one of them. The most foolish of them all, the one she had named Zipper for the way he flew so fest.

  Zipper spotted Lucy, and let out a cheerful squeak. He hopped over to her, swished his tail back and forth, and chirped "Cookie? Cookie?"

  In a voice near to breaking, C'astille said "Lucy M'Calder. Charlie M'Sisulu. Allow me to present Ameser, whom you call Zipper. Allow me to present my father."

  "Cookie?"

  L
ucy tried to speak, but the tears welled up in eyes, ran down her cheek. Her voice choked up, and she let out a strangled sob. She raised her hands to her face, tried to wipe away the tears, but the helmet stopped her hands. She sobbed uncontrollably.

  Charlie felt his bile rising, felt the urge to run home to Earth, to claw his way up the sky to a place where the rules of life were not so brutish. These were civilized people, but their creator was a barbarian.

  "Cookie?"

  Slowly, all too slowly, Lucy forced herself to be calm. She tried to think coldly, to analyze. The irony of it! For she could see at once that culture-making, intelligence itself, were lethal mutations here. From the point of view of a reproductive strategy, from the viewpoint of evolution, the transition of each individual from female to male made good sense. The ancestors of the Z'ensam, who had not yet evolved intelligence, must have been served well by the pattern of their lives. It was the females, the mothers, that needed the smarts, the big brains, the brawn, to shelter and protect the children. And child rearing would be a shared duty in a herd species. The herds, ancestors of the Groups, would have cooperated in raising young. And the males, the flying males, would have been capable of travelling great distances, keeping the gene pool well mixed in the small, widely dispersed population. They could spread any advantageous mutation rapidly, and also ensure that the species stayed genetically cohesive. And each individual had a double chance to spread her/his genes around.

  Only when the females developed true sentience, only when they developed the ability to reason and remember and communicate, would the strategy backfire. A thinking creature would know she was the offspring of a mindless animal, fated to mate with an animal, fated to become an animal.

  How many humans, suffering brain damage or disease, confronted with the prospect of madness, had killed themselves rather than degenerate? And that happened to all the Z'ensaml

  No wonder it was impossible for them to maintain a stable population. No wonder it was easy to find empty camps, the building left by some group of Z'ensam that had just given up. . . .

  Lucy thought of her own mother, still strong and sturdy, warm-hearted and sharp-witted, if a bit grayed and tired. Senility, at worst a faint and far-off danger, was nowadays largely preventable. And her father. Her strong, happy, laughing, clever, kindly father, full of wisdom and understanding when his children needed him.

  What would she, Lucy, be like, what bitterness would every human child carry inside, if they knew their fathers were mindless brutes?

  "Well, then," C'astille said. She looked down at the pathetic, bewildered Zipper, the little fool wondering why his friends were all so sad. "You have seen my future. A gibbering fool who can be trained, with great effort, to ask for a cookie. And this will not happen to you, and that will scar the relations of our species for the rest of time. That saddens me.

  "But, I must confess some curiosity. Something I have wondered about, and never dared to ask. But you have seen ours, and turnabout is fair play. You didn't bring them along, of course. But tell me about them. Describe your implanters to me."

  Charlie looked sharply at Lucy. My God, he thought, Lucy's little description of our life cycle—she left out that males had minds! C'astille still thinks I'm a female! He caught Lucy's eye, and she nodded. The truth was going to be bad news, probably disastrous. But they owed C'astille the truth, and lying would only make the inevitable discovery of the truth even worse later on. "We did bring 'em along," he said. "Our name for an adult is 'female.' Our name for an implanter is 'male.' You're talking to one of each."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Aboard Reunion, En Route from Outpost Orbit to Refiner Camp

  The ocean waters exploded into a raging cloud of superheated steam and molecules disassociated into component atoms, heated by the lander Reunions roaring fusion engine. The very air flamed as superheated oxygen and hydrogen cooled enough to recombine, setting a halo of faint blue fire around the lander. The lander actually submerged below sea level before rising again and settling to a steady hover. But the heat of fusion and the pulse of expanding air and steam forced the water back, and the lander stayed dry.

  Cynthia Wu was glad for small favors. It had been a hell of a ride. Gustav was trying to convince anyone who watched on radar that Reunion was being ditched, crashed into the ocean before she blew. It had been a hard entry. The autopilot had run an unpowered punch through the atmosphere, relying on air drag for braking, not lighting the fusion engines until Reunion was a bare five kilometers up—wavetop level for a spacecraft. The flare of the fusion engines and the roaring cloud of steam should look plenty enough like an explosion and impact for anyone watching from orbit.

  More importantly, the ion sheath formed by the burning should foul up their radar. Cynthia took the control, checked her location against the last ground-track of the beacon, had the computer spit out a minimum-burn ballistic jump to the beacon, and throttled up the engines.

  Reunion pogoed back up into the air, and instantly cut her engines. With any luck, no one was watching but if they were, they might not be able to spot Reunion, even so.

  Reunion skittered up through the sky, headed north, then turned tail, and fell back toward the planet. The beacon signal came back over the horizon, Cynthia tweaked up her course to head for it and rode on it.

  It would be good to see Lucy and Mac and Joslyn again. Cynthia had named Reunion with this meeting in mind. She could hardly wait. She kicked in the chemical landing rockets and looked for a place to put her down.

  Reunion landed without incident about five kilometers from the Refiner sight. Cynthia was still buttoning up the craft when the line of pressure-suited figures came into sight of the external cameras. There was Mac, all right, gigantic in his pressure suit. And Joslyn I After God knows how long without seeing them, they still looked the same. Cynthia smiled and laughed out loud with the sheer joy of seeing people from home.

  But something was wrong out there. She could see it in their tense, nervous movements. She hurried through the airlock and down the ladder to the ground. Mac crossed the ground scorched by the lander engines and hugged her.

  "Cynthia. Damn, are we glad you're here," he said.

  "Oh, Mac. It's good to see you." She looked at him, his face half-hidden behind the faceplate. And she inhaled sharply. She saw something she had never seen before. Mac was scared.

  "Cynthia, let's get aboard and make sure that lander is cranked up and ready to go when we need her. We're going to camp aboard her instead of with the Refiners. Things have gone very wrong. Not just for us here. The Refiners might not help us against the Guards and Nihilists. Lucy is scared they might help the Nihilists get rid of us. We might have to get out of here fast, carrying a warning."

  Ariadne

  Commander Richard Sprunt, commander of Nike Station's radar room, opened the door to Gustav's office and walked in without knocking or announcement. "You have some explaining to do, Gustav. And you'd better do it now."

  Gustav calmly signed his name, put down his pen, tossed the paperwork into his out box, and leaned back in his chair. "Have a seat, Commander."

  Sprunt pulled off his hat and sat down heavily. He was a pale-faced, sandy-haired man, medium height, with angry pale gray eyes and sharp, abrupt mannerisms. "Twice now, Lieutenant Gustav, CIs have vanished from this station, and twice landers have been lost. The official reports from this station say the CIs are dead and the landers crashed. Once I could buy, but not twice. Escapes, Gustav. Those were escapes. I saw both of them go down personally on Nike's radar, and the visual evidence could go either way—if it had happened once. Not twice. I'm here to do you a favor. I'm using a perfectly good three-day pass to come over from Nike to tell you, man-to-man, quietly, that you can't go covering up escapes. I knew your father, and he was a good officer. You owe it to him to straighten up, fly right, investigate these incidents properly, and take your lumps like a man."

  "I've been expecting you, Commander Sprunt, thou
gh I admit it's a bonus that you came on liberty. Obviously, you haven't filed a report, and no one will have to know where you were for three days."

  "What? Just what the hell are you saying?" Sprunt roared, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  "Your crew must be pretty good, I admit that," Gustav said. "But not great. They missed the first lander launching toward the barycenter a week or two ago. And they missed the covert glider/lander that went in a few days ago. And they never had wit enough to do a frequency sweep-check and spot the Refiner's beacon. Of course, the Outposters have radio. Maybe they thought that was just one of the Refiner's normal signals, so I can't really fault them there. But my CIs didn't miss anything, not even the covert. Schiller nailed that, just barely. A very tough target. I can't blame you for missing that one either."

  "Gustav, you bloody traitor—" Sprunt rose half out of his chair at Gustav, and froze. A laser pistol had appeared in Gustav's hand, pointed right at Sprunt's chest.

  "Sit down again, Commander. Let me tell you a version of the truth. You know I'm ex-Intelligence. Suppose I told you that I was working desperately, taking enormous risks, playing the most daring games with the enemy, to prevent what I believe is a possible attack on Capital that could wipe out our nation?"

  "I'd say that you were a bloody traitor with paranoid delusions of grandeur," Sprunt said.

  Gustav realized his visitor was angry, not scared. Give Sprunt that much credit. "In a few days' time, Commander, I doubt it will matter very much what you think. But right now it might matter, and in blindly doing what I grant is your duty, you could doom millions. So I will put you under extremely quiet arrest. I think I might lie to the computer and put you on a flight down to the Contact Camp, a tourist going to see the aliens. There are already cases of men wandering off into the woodlands and vanishing. Sometimes the searchers find the torn-up remains of pressure suits. The native life is vicious. I grant you that would be a dangerous game, too. But know that I am prepared to kill you and cover it up as best I can if you force me to it.