Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by James Tiptree Jr.

  Air, free air! Aaron can almost feel that sweet wind, he longs to hurl himself into the viewer, to stride out across the meadows, up to the hills. A paradise. Was it just after this that the crew ripped off their foul space suits and refused to go back to the ship?

  Who could blame them, Aaron thinks. Not he. God, they look happy! It’s hard to remember when we lived, really lived. A corner of his mind remembers Bruce Jang, hopes he will not linger too long by that picture.

  The crowd has carried him half around the toroid now; he is entering a wide section full of individual console seats that is normally the library. With the privacy partitions down it is used for their rare general assemblies. The rostrum is at the middle, where the speaker’s whole figure will be most visible. It’s empty. Beyond it is a screen projecting the star field ahead; year by year Aaron and his shipmates have watched the suns of Centaurus growing on that screen, separating to doubles and double-doubles. Now it shows only a single sun. The great blazing component of Alpha around which Lory’s planet circles.

  Several people are using the scanners while they wait. Aaron sits down beside a feminine back he recognizes as Lieutenant Pauli, Tim Bron’s navigator. Her head is buried in the scanner hood. The title-panel on the console reads: GAMMA CENTAURUS MISSION. V, VERBAL REPORT BY DR. LORY KAYE, EXCERPTS FROM. That would be Lory’s original narrative session, Aaron decides. Nothing about the “argument” there.

  Pauli clicks off and folds down the scanner hood. When Aaron catches her eye she smiles dreamily, looking through him. Åhlstrom is sitting down just beyond; unbelievably, she’s smiling, too. Aaron looks around sharply at the rows of faces, thinking I’ve been shut away three weeks, I haven’t realized what the planet is doing to them. Them? He finds his own risor muscle is tight.

  Captain Yellaston is moving to the speaker’s stand, being stopped by questions, Aaron hasn’t heard so much chatter in years. The hall seems to be growing hot with so many bodies bouncing around. He isn’t used to crowds anymore, none of them are. And this is only sixty people. Dear god—what if we have to go back to Earth? The thought is horrible. He remembers their first year when there was another viewscreen showing the view astern: yellow Sol, shrinking, dwindling. That had been a rotten idea, soon abolished. What if the planet is somehow no good, is toxic or whatever—what if they have to turn around and spend ten years watching Sol expand again? Unbearable. It would finish him. Finish them all. Others must be thinking this too, he realizes. Doctor, you could have a problem. A big, big problem. But that planet has to be all right. It looks all right, it looks beautiful.

  The hall is falling silent, ready for Yellaston. Aaron catches sight of Soli on the far side, Coby is by her with Tighe between them. And there’s Lory by the other wall, sitting with Don and Tim. She’s holding herself in a tight huddle, like a rape victim in court; probably agonized by her tapes being on the scanners. Aaron curses himself routinely for his sensitivity to her, realizes he has missed Yellaston’s opening words.

  “. . . the hope which we may now entertain.” Yellaston’s voice is reticent but warm; it is also a rare sound on Centaur—the captain is no speechmaker. “I have a thought to share with you. Doubtless it has occurred to others, too. One of my occupations in the abundant leisure of our recent years”—pause for the ritual smiles—“has been the reading of the history of human exploration and migrations on our own planet. Most of the story is unrecorded, of course. But in the history of new colonies one fact appears again and again. That is that people have suffered appalling casualties when they attempted to move to a new habitation in even the more favorable areas of our own home world.

  “For example, the attempts by Europeans to settle on the Northeast coast of America. The early Scandinavian colonies may have lasted a few generations before they vanished. The first English colony in fertile, temperate Virginia met disaster, and the survivors were recalled. The Plymouth colony succeeded in the end, but only because they were continuously resupplied. from Europe and helped by the original Indian inhabitants. The catastrophe that struck them interested me greatly.

  “They came from northern Europe, from above fifty degrees north. Winters there are mild because the coast is warmed by the Gulf Stream, but this ocean current was not understood at that time. They sailed south by west, to what should have been a warmer land. Massachusetts was then covered by wild forests, like a park if we can imagine such a thing, and it was indeed warm summer when they landed. But when winter came it brought a fierce cold like nothing they had ever experienced, because that coast has no warming sea-current. A simple problem to us. But their technical knowledge had not foreseen it and their resources could not meet it. The effect of the bitter cold was compounded by disease and malnutrition. They suffered a fearful toll of lives. Consider: there were seventeen married women in that colony; of these, fifteen died the first winter.”

  Yellaston pauses, looking over their heads.

  “Similar misfortunes befell numberless other colonies from unforeseen conditions of heat or drought or disease or predators. I am thinking also of the European settlers in my own New Zealand and in Australia and of the peoples who colonized the islands of the Pacific. The archaeological records of Earth are filled with instance after instance of peoples who arrived in an area and seemingly vanished away. What impresses me here is that these disasters occurred in places that we now regard as eminently favorable to human life. The people were moving to an only slightly different terrain of our familiar Earth, the Earth on which we have evolved. They were under our familiar sun, in our atmosphere and gravity and other geophysical conditions. They met only very small differences. And yet these small differences killed them.”

  He was looking directly at them now, his fine light greenish eyes moving unhurriedly from face to face.

  “I believe we should remind ourselves of this history as we look at the splendid photographs of this new planet which Commander Kuh has sent back to us. It is not another corner of Earth nor an airless desert like Mars. It is the first totally alien living world that man has touched. We may have no more concept of its true nature and conditions than the British migrants had of an American winter.

  “Commander Kuh and his people have bravely volunteered themselves to test its viability. We see them in these photographs apparently at ease and unharmed. But I would remind you that a year has passed since these pictures were made, a year during which they have had only the meager resources of their camp. We hope and trust that they are alive and well today. But we must remember that unforeseeable hazards may have assailed them. They may be wounded, ill, in dire straits. I believe it is appropriate to hold this in mind. We here are safe and well, able to proceed with caution to the next step. They may not be.”

  Very nice, Aaron thinks. He has been watching faces, seeing here and there a lip quirked at the captain’s little homily, but mostly expressions like his own. Moved and sobered. He’s our pacemaker, as usual. And he’s taken the edge off our envy of the China crew. Dire straits—wonderful old phrase. Are they really in dire straits, maybe? Yellaston is concluding a congratulatory remark for Lory. With a start, Aaron recalls his own suspicion of her, his conviction that she is hiding something. And ten minutes ago I was ready to rush out onto that planet, he chides himself. I’m losing balance, I have to stop these mood swings. A thought has been percolating in him, something about Kuh. It surfaces. Yes. Bruised larynxes croak or wheeze. But Kuh’s weak voice had been clear. Should check on that.

  People are moving away. Aaron moves with them, sees Lory over by the ramp, surrounded by a group. She’s come out of her huddle, she’s answering their questions. No use trying to talk to her now. He wanders back through the displays. They still look tempting, but Yellaston has broken the spell, at least for him. Are those happy people now lying dead on the bright ground, perhaps devoured, skeletons left? Aaron jumps; a voice is speaking in his ear.

  “Dr. Kaye?”

  It’s Frank Foy, of all people.

&nbs
p; “Doctor, I wanted to say—I hope you understand? My role, the distressing aspects. One sometimes has to perform duties that are most repugnant, as a medical man you too must have had similar –”

  “No problem.” Aaron collects himself. Why is Frank so embarrassing? “It was your job.”

  Foy looks at him emotionally. “I’m so glad you feel that way. Your sister—I mean, Dr. Lory Kaye—such an admirable person. It seems incredible a woman could make that trip all alone.”

  “Yeah . . . By the way, speaking of incredible, Frank, I know Lory’s voice pretty well. I believe I was able to spot the points that were bothering you, in fact I’m inclined to share your—”

  “Oh, not at all, Aaron,” Foy cuts him off. “You need say no more, I’m entirely satisfied. Entirely. Her explanation clears up every point.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “The fate of the recording system, the absence of the welder and other tools, Commander Kuh’s words, the question of injury—he was injured—the emotion about living on the planet. Dr. Kaye’s revelation of the, ah, conflict dovetails perfectly.”

  Aaron has to admit that it does. Frank goes in for chess problems, he remembers; a weakness for elegant solutions.

  “What about welding that alien in and being afraid to look at it? Between us, that thing gives me willies, too.”

  “Yes,” Foy says soberly. “Yes, I fear I was giving in to my natural, well, is xenophobia the word? But we mustn’t let it blind us. Undoubtedly Commander Kuh’s people stripped that ship, Aaron. A dreadful experience for your sister, I felt no need to make her relive all that must have gone on. Among all those Chinese, poor girl.”

  When xenophobias collide . . . Aaron sees Foy isn’t going to be much help, but he tries again.

  “The business of the planet being ideal, a paradise and so on, that bothered me, too.”

  “Oh, I feel that Captain Yellaston put his finger on the answer there, Aaron. The excitement, the elation. I hadn’t appreciated it. Now that I’ve seen these, I confess I feel it myself.”

  “Yeah.” Aaron sighs. In addition to the elegant solution, Frank has received the Word. Captain Yellaston (who art in Heaven) has explained.

  “Aaron, I confess I hate these things!” Foy says unexpectedly.

  Aaron mumbles, thinking, possible, maybe he does. On the surface, anyway. With a peculiar smiling-through-tears look Foy goes on, “Your sister is such a wonderful person. Her strength is as the strength of ten, because her heart is pure.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Suddenly the evening chow-call chimes out, saving him. Aaron bolts into the nearest passageway. Oh, no. Not Frank Foy. No ball-breaking here, though. Abelard and Héloïse, so pure. A perfect match, really . . . What would Frank say if he told him about Lory and himself? Hey, Frank, when we were kids I humped my little sister all over the Sixth Army District, she screwed like a mink in those days. On second thought, forget it, Aaron tells himself. He knows how Frank would react. “Oh.” Long grave pause. “I’m terribly sorry, Aaron. For you.” Maybe even in priestly tones, “Would it help you to talk about it?” Etsanctimoniouscetera. A tough case, will the real Frank Foy ever stand up? No. Lucky it doesn’t interfere with his being a damn good mathematician. Maybe it helps, for all I know. Humans! . . . A good food-smell is in his nose, lifting his mood. Chemoreceptors have pathways to the primitive brain. Ahead are voices, music, lights.

  Maybe Foy’s right, Aaron muses. How about that? Lory’s story does dovetail. Am I getting weird? Sex fantasies about Sis, I haven’t had that trouble for years. It’s being locked up with her, Tighe, that alien—a big armful of Soli, that’s what I need. Solace, Soul-ass . . . Resolutely ignoring a sensation that the alien is now straight overhead outside the hull, Aaron fills a server and takes it over to a seat by Coby and Jan Ing, the Xenobiology chief with whom he will be working tomorrow. He’s Lory’s boss; Lory herself isn’t here.

  “Quite a crowd tonight.”

  “Yeah.” In recent years more and more of Centaur’s people have been eating alone at odd hours, taking their food to their rooms. Now there’s a hubbub here. Aaron sees the Peruvian oceanographer has a chart propped by his server, he’s talking to a circle of people with his mouth full, pointing. Miriamne Stein and her two girl friends—women friends, Aaron corrects himself—who usually eat together are sitting with Bruce Jang and two men from Don’s crew. EVA Chief George Brokeshoulder has shaved a black black war-crest on his copper scalp, he hasn’t bothered to do that in years. Åhlstrom is over there with Akin the Photo chief, for heaven’s sake. The whole tranquillized ship is coming to life, tiger-eyes opening, ape-brains reaching. Even the neat sign which for so long has read, THE CENTRAL PROBLEM OF OUR LIVES IS GARBAGE. PLEASE CLEAN YOUR SERVERS, has been changed: someone has taped over GARBAGE and lettered BEAUTY.

  “Notice the treat we’re getting, boss,” says Coby munching. “How did Alice get Kawabata to let loose some chicken? Oh, oh—look.”

  The room falls silent as Alice Berryman holds up dessert—a plate of real, whole peaches.

  “One half for each person,” she says severely. She is wearing a live flower over her ear.

  “People are becoming excited,” the XB chief observes. “How will it sustain itself for nearly two years?”

  “If we go to that planet,” Aaron mutters.

  “I could make an amoral suggestion,” Coby grins. “Tranks in the water supply.”

  Nobody laughs. “We’ve made out so far without, uh, chemical supplementation, as Frank would say,” says Aaron. “I think we’ll hold out.”

  “Oh, I know, I know. But don’t say I didn’t warn you it may come to that.”

  “About tomorrow,” Jan Ing says. “The first thing we will get will be the biomonitor records from the personnel section of the scout ship, right? Before we proceed to open the cargo space?”

  “That’s the way I hear it.”

  “Immediately after opening the alien’s module I plan to secure biopsy sections. Very minimal, of course. Dr. Kaye says she doesn’t believe that will harm the alien. We’re working on extension probes that can be manipulated from outside the hatch.”

  “The longer the better,” Aaron says, imagining tentacles. “Assuming the alien life-form is still alive. . . . ” The XB chief taps out a silent theme, probably from Sibelius. “We’ll know when we get our hands on the record.”

  “It should be.” Aaron has been feeling the thing lying out beyond the buffet wall. “Tell me, Jan, do you ever have an impression that the thing is, well, present?”

  “Oh, we’re all conscious of that.” Ing laughs. “Biggest event in scientific history, isn’t that so? If only it is alive.”

  “You getting bad vibrations, boss? The dreams?” Coby inquires.

  “Yeah.” But Aaron can’t go on, not with Coby’s expression. “Yeah, I am. A xenophobe at heart.”

  They go into a discussion of the tissue-analyzing program and the type of bioscanners that will be placed inside the alien’s module.

  “What if that thing comes charging out into the corridor?” Coby interjects. “What if it’s had kittens or split into a million little wigglers?”

  “Well, we have the standard decontaminant aerosols,” Jan frowns. “Captain Yellaston has emphasized the precautionary aspect. He will, I believe, be personally standing by the emergency vent control, which could very quickly depressurize the corridor in case of real emergency. This means we will be wearing suits. Awkward working.”

  “Good.” Aaron bites the delicious peach, delighted to hear that old Yellaston’s hand will be on the button. “Jan, I want a clear understanding that no part of that thing is taken into the ship. Beyond the corridor, I mean.”

  “Oh, I entirely agree. We’ll have a complete satellite system there. Including mice. It will be crowded.” He swabs his server with cellulose granules from the dispenser, frowning harder. “It would be unthinkable to harm the specimen.”

  “Yeah.” Lory has still not come in, Aaron sees. Probably eating in her ro
om after that mob scene. He joins the recycle line, noticing that the usual glumness of the routine seems to have evaporated. Even Coby omits his scatological joke. What are Kuh’s people eating now, Aaron wonders, telepathic vegetable steaks?

  Lory is quartered—naturally—in the all-female dorm on the opposite side of the ship. Aaron hikes up a spiral crossship ramp, as usual not quite enjoying the sharp onset of weightlessness as he comes to Centaur’s core. Her central core is a wide free-fall service shaft from bow to stern, much patronized by the more athletic members of the crew. Aaron kicks awkwardly across it, savoring the rich air. It comes from a green-and-blue radiance far away at the stern end—the Hydroponics Farm and the Hull Pool, their other chief amenity. He shudders slightly, recalling the horrible months when the air even here was foul and the passageways dark. Five years ago an antibiotic from somebody’s intestinal tract had mutated instead of being broken down by passage through the reactor coolant system. When it reached the plant beds it behaved as a chlorophyll-binding quasi-virus and Kawabata had had to destroy seventy-five percent of the oxygenating beds. A terrible time, waiting with all oxygen-consuming devices shut down for the new seedlings to grow and prove clean. Brr . . . He starts “down” the exit ramp to Lory’s dorm, past the cargo stores and service areas. People aren’t allowed to live in less than three-quarters gee. Corridors branch out every few meters leading to other dorms and living units. Centaur is a warren of corridors, that’s part of the program, too.

  He comes to the tiny foyer or commons room outside the dorm proper and sees red hair beyond a bank of ferns: Lory—chewing on her supper, as he’d guessed. What he hadn’t expected is the large form of Don Purcell, hunched opposite her deep in conversation.

  Well, well! Mildly astounded, Aaron right-flanks into another passage and takes himself off toward his office, blessing Centaur’s design. The people of Pioneer had suffered severely from the stress of too much social contact in every waking moment; the answer found for Centaur was not larger spaces but an abundance of alternative routes that allow her people to enjoy privacy in their comings and goings about the ship, as they would in a village. Two persons in a two-meter corridor must confront each other, but in two one-meter corridors each is alone and free to be his private self. It has worked well, Aaron thinks; he has noticed that over the years people have developed private “trails” through the ship. Kawabata, for instance, makes his long way from Farm to Messhall by a weird route through the cold sensor blister. He himself has a few. He grins, aware that his mind is demonstrating his total lack of irritation at finding Lory with another man.