Picnic On Nearside

by John Varley

  Quester found himself laughing. To his surprise, Solace laughed along with him. The situation was so grotesque that he had to either laugh or scream.

  "Listen," he said, "I don't believe in sinister humanoid invaders."

  "No? But you believe in superhuman heavy-planet Invaders like the ones that have occupied the Earth, don't you? And you haven't even seen them."

  "Are you telling me you do believe that thing was an... an alien?"

  "I'm not saying anything. But I'm wondering what those people were doing, earlier, armed with clubs. Do you believe in mutiny?"

  "Solace, I'd welcome a mutiny, I'd throw a party, give away all my worldly wealth to charity if only such a normal, everyday thing would happen. But I don't think it will. I think we've fallen through the looking glass."

  "You think you're crazy?" She looked at him skeptically.

  "Yep. I'm going to turn myself in right now. You're obviously not even here. Maybe this ship isn't even here."

  She twisted slightly in the air, bringing her legs up close to his chest.

  "I'll prove to you I'm here," she said, working with all four hands and peds at unbuttoning him.

  "Hold it. What are you... how can you think of that at a time like..." It sounded familiar. She laughed, holding his wrists with her hands as her peds quickly stripped him.

  "You've never been in danger before," she said. "I have. It's a common reaction to get aroused in a tight spot, especially when the danger's not immediate. And you are, and so am I."

  It was true. He was, but didn't like doing it in the hallway.

  "There's not room here," he protested. "Another of those critters could come along."

  "Yes, isn't it exciting?" Her eyes were alight by now, and her breath was fast and shallow. "And if you think there isn't room, you haven't done it in free-fall yet. Ever tried the Hermesian Hyperbola?"

  Quester sighed, and submitted. Soon he was doing more than submitting. He decided she was as crazy as everyone else, or, alternatively, he was crazy and she was as sane as everybody else. But she was right about the free-fall. There was plenty of room.

  They were interrupted by a crackle of static from the public address. They paused to listen to it.

  "Attention, your attention please. This is the provisional captain speaking. The traitor running-dog lackey ex-captain is now in chains. Long Live the Revolutionary Committee, who will now lead us on the true path of Procreative Anti-Abortionism."

  "Free-Birthers!" Quester yelped. "We've been hijacked by Free-Birthers!"

  The new captain, who sounded like a woman, started to go on, but her voice was cut short in a hideous gurgle.

  "Long Live the Loyalist Faction of the Glorious Siblings of the—" a new voice began, but it, too, was cut short. Voices shouted in rapid succession.

  "The counterrevolution has been suppressed," shouted yet another captain. "Liberate our wombs! Our gonads—our Freedom! Attention, attention! All female persons aboard this ship are ordered to report at once to the infirmary for artificial insemination. Shirkers will be obliterated. That is all."

  Neither of them said anything for a long time. At last Solace eased herself away a bit and let him slip out of her. She let out a deep breath.

  "I wonder if I could plead double jeopardy?"

  "Insanity four, reality nothing," Quester giggled. He was in high spirits as they skulked their way down the dim corridors.

  "Are you still on that?" Solace shot back. She sounded a bit tired of him. She kept having to hang back as he struggled to keep up with her supple quadridexterous pace. "Listen, if you want to get fitted for a straitjacket, the tailor's in the other direction. Me, I don't care how ridiculous the situation gets. I'll keep coping."

  "I can't help it," he admitted. "I keep feeling that I wrote this story several years ago. Maybe in another life. I dunno."

  She peered around another corner. They were on their way to the temporary bridge. They had stopped three times already to watch black-suited figures drift by. Everyone else they had seen— those dressed in holiday clothes—had ducked into doorways as quickly as they themselves. At least it seemed that the passengers were no longer in the holiday mood, were aware that there was something wrong.

  "You a writer?" she asked.

  "Yes. I write scientifiction. Maybe you've heard of it. There's a cult following, but we don't reach the general public."

  "What's it about?"

  "Scientifiction deals with life on Earth. It's set in the future— each of us creates our own hypothetical future with our own ground rules and set of assumptions. The basic assumption is that we figure out a way to fight the Invaders and reclaim the Earth, or at least a beachhead. In my stories we've managed to rout the Invaders, but the dolphins and whales are still around, and they want their allies back, so humans fight them. It's adventure stuff, purely for thrills. I have a hero called the Panama Kid."

  She glanced back at him, and he couldn't read the expression. He was used to taking the defensive about his vocation.

  "Is there a living in that?"

  "I managed to get aboard the Snowball for the final trip, didn't I? That wasn't cheap, but then you know that. Say, what do you do for a living?"

  "Nothing. My mother was a holehunter. She made a strike in '45 and got rich. She went out again and left the money to me. She's due back in about fifty years, unless she gets swallowed by a hole."

  "So you were born on Pluto?"

  "No. I was born in free-fall, about one hundred AU from the sun. I think that's a record so far." She grinned back at him, looking pleased with herself. "You made up your mind yet?"

  "Huh?"

  "Have you decided if you're the author or a character? If you really think you're crazy, you can shove off. What can you do but accept the reality of your senses?"

  He paused and really thought about it for the first time since he met her.

  "I do," he said firmly. "It's all happening. Holy Cetacean, it really is happening."

  "Glad to have you with us. I told you you couldn't experience the Hermesian Hyperbola and still doubt your senses.

  It hadn't been the love-making, Quester knew. That could be as illusory as anything else; he had the stained sheets to prove it. But he believed in her, even if there was something decidedly illogical about the goings-on around her.

  "Attention, attention."

  "Oh, shit. What now?" They slowed near a speaker so they could listen without distortion.

  "Glad tidings! This is the provisional captain, speaking for the ad hoc steering committee. We have decided to steer this comet into a new, closer approach to the sun, thus gaining speed for a faster departure from solar space. It has been decided to convert this vessel hereafter to be referred to as the Spermatozoa, into an interstellar colony ship to spread the seed of humanity to the stars. All passengers are hereby inducted into the Proletarian Echelon of the Church of Unlimited Population. Conversion of all resources into a closed-ecology system will begin at once. Save your feces! Breathe shallowly until this crisis is past. Correction, correction, there is no crisis. Do not panic. Anyone found panicking will be shot. The steering committee has determined that there is no crisis. All surviving officers with knowledge of how to work these little gadgets on the bridge are ordered to report immediately."

  Quester looked narrowly at Solace.

  "Do you know anything about them?"

  "I can pilot a ship, if that's what you mean. I've never flown anything quite this... enormous... but the principles are the same. You aren't suggesting that we help them, are you?"

  "I don't know," he admitted. "I didn't really think in terms of plans until a few minutes ago. What was your plan? Why are we headed for the bridge?"

  She shrugged. "Just to see what the hell's going on, I guess. But maybe we ought to make some preparations. Let's get some life jackets."

  They found a locker in the hall containing emergency equipment. Inside were twenty of the nullfield devices called life jackets. M
ore accurately, they were emergency spacesuit generators, with attached water recyclers and oxygen supply. Each of them was a red cylinder about thirty centimeters long and fifteen in diameter with shoulder straps and a single flexible tube with a metal connector on the end. They were worn strapped to the back with the tube reaching over the shoulder.

  In operation, the life jackets generated a nullfield that conformed closely to the contours of the wearer's body. The field oscillated between one and one and a half millimeters from the skin, and the resulting bellows action forced waste air through the exhaust nozzle. The device attached itself to a tiny metal valve that was surgically implanted in all the passengers. The valve's external connection was located under Quester's left collarbone. He had almost forgotten it was there. It was just a brass-colored flower that might be mistaken for jewelry but was actually part of a plumbing system that could route venous blood from his pulmonary artery to the oxygenator on his back. It then returned through a parallel pipe to his left auricle and on to his body.

  Solace helped him get into it and showed him the few manual controls. Most of it was automatic. It would switch on the field around him if the temperature or pressure changed suddenly.

  Then they were off again through the silent corridors to confront the hijackers.

  At the last turn in the corridor before reaching the temporary bridge, they stopped to manually switch on their suit fields. Solace instantly became a mirror in the shape of a woman. The field reflected all electromagnetic radiation except through pupil-sized discontinuities over her eyes which let in controlled quanta of visible light. It was disquieting. The funhouse effect, it was called, and it looked as if her body had been twisted through another spatial dimension. She almost disappeared, except for a pattern of distortions that hurt Quester's eyes when he looked at it.

  They reached the door leading to the bridge and stopped for a moment. It was a perfectly ordinary door. Quester wondered why he was here with this impulsive woman.

  "Do we knock first, or what?" she mused. "What do you think, Quester? What would the Panama Kid do?"

  "He'd knock it down," Quester said without hesitation. "But he wouldn't have gotten here without his trusty laser. Say, do you think we ought to go back and..."

  "No. We'd better do it now before we think about it too hard. These suits are protections against any weapon I know of. The most they can do is capture us."

  "Then what?"

  "Then you can talk us out of it. You're the one who's fast with words, aren't you?"

  Quester remained silent as she backed up and planted herself against the opposite wall, coiled and ready to hit the door with her shoulder. He didn't want to point out that skill with a typer and skill at oratory are not necessarily related. Besides, if she wanted to risk forcible insemination, it was her business.

  Just on the off chance, he touched the door plate with his palm. It clicked, and the door opened. It was too late. Solace howled and barreled end-over-end into the room, reaching out with all four limbs like a huge silver starfish to grab onto something. Quester rushed after her, then stopped short as soon as he was into the room. There was no one in it.

  "Talk about your anticlimax," Solace breathed, getting herself sorted out from a pile of crates at the far end of the room. "I... never mind. It was my fault. Who'd have thought it'd be unlocked?"

  "I did," Quester pointed out. "Hold it a minute. We're sort of, well, we're being pretty hasty, aren't we? I haven't really had time to stop and think since we got going, but I think we're going at this the wrong way, I really do. Damn it, this isn't an adventure, where everything goes according to a set pattern. I've written enough of them, I ought to know. This is life, and that means there's got to be a rational explanation."

  "So what is it?"

  "I don't know. But I don't think we'll find it this way. Things have been happening... well, think about the announcements over the PA, for instance. They are crazy! No one's that crazy, not even Free-Birthers."

  Quester's chain of thought was interrupted by the noisy entrance of four people in life jackets. He and Solace jumped up, banged their heads on the ceiling, and were quickly captured.

  "All right, which one of you is the provisional captain?"

  There was a short silence, then Solace broke it with a laugh.

  "Lincoln?" she asked.

  "Solace?"

  The four were part of Solace's short-lived cabal. It seemed the ship was crawling with people who were concerned enough about the situation to try and do something about it. Before Quester caught all the names, they were surprised by another group of four, with three more close on their heels. The situation threatened to degenerate into a pitched battle of confused identities until someone had a suggestion.

  "Why don't we hang a sign on the door? Anybody who comes in here thinks we're the hijackers." They did, and the sign said the provisional captain was dead. While new arrivals were pondering that and wondering what to do next, someone had time to explain the situation.

  Someone arrived with a tray of drinks, and soon the would-be liberators were releasing their tensions in liquor and argument. There were fifteen pet theories expounded in as many minutes.

  Now that he felt he had his feet under him, Quester adopted a wait-and-see attitude. The data was still insufficient.

  " 'When you have eliminated the impossible,' " he quoted, " 'whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth.' "

  "So what does that gain us?" Solace asked.

  "Only a viewpoint. Me, I think we'll have to wait until we get back to Mercury to find out what's been happening. Unless you bring me a live alien, or Free-Birther, or... some physical evidence."

  "Then let's go look for it," Solace said.

  "Attention, attention. This is the ship's computer speaking. I have grave news for all passengers. The entire crew has been assassinated. Until now, I have been blocked by a rogue program inserted by the revolutionaries which has prevented me from regaining control of operations. Luckily, this situation has been remedied. Unluckily, the bridge is still in the hands of the pirates! They have access to all my manual controls from their position, and I'm afraid there is but one course open to those of you who wish to avoid a catastrophe. We are on a trajectory that will soon intersect with the solar chromosphere, and I am powerless to correct it until the bridge is regained. Rally to me! Rise in righteous fury and repulse the evil usurpers! Storm the bridge! Long live the counterrevolution!"

  There was a short silence as the implications sank in, then a babble of near panic. Several people headed for the door, only to come back and bolt it. There was an ominous roar from outside.

  "...chromosphere? Where the hell are we? Has anyone been out on the surface lately?"

  "...some pleasure cruise. I haven't even seen the sun and now they say we're about to..."

  "...pirates, revolutions, counterrevolutions, Free-Birthers, aliens, for heaven's sake..."

  Solace looked helplessly around her, listened to the pounding on the door. She located Quester hunkered down beside an instrument console and crouched beside him.

  "Talk your way out of this one, Panama Kid," she yelled in his ear.

  "My dear, I'm much too busy to talk. If I can get the back off this thing..." He worked at it and finally pulled off a metal cover. "There was a click from here when the computer came on the line."

  There was a recorder inside, with a long reel of tape strung between playback heads. He punched a button that said rewind, watched the tape cycle briefly through, and hit the play button.

  "Attention, attention. This is the ship's computer speaking. I have grave news for all passengers."

  "We've heard that one already," someone shouted. Quester held his head in his hands for a moment, then looked up at Solace. She opened her mouth to say something, then bit her lip, her eyebrows almost touched in a look of puzzlement so funny that Quester would have laughed out loud. But the roof of the bridge evaporated.

  It took only a
few seconds. There was a blinding white light and a terrible roaring sound; then he was whisked into the air and pulled toward the outside. In an instant, everyone was covered in a nullfield and milling around the hole in the roof like a school of silverfish. In two's and three's they were sucked through. Then the room was empty and Quester was still in it. He looked down and saw Solace's hand around his ankle. She was grasping the firmly anchored computer console with one ped. She hauled him down to her and held him close as he found handholds. His teeth were chattering.

  The door burst open, and there was another flurry of astonished passengers sucked through the roof. It didn't take as long this time; the hole in the roof was much larger. Beyond the hole was blackness.

  Quester was surprised to see how calm he was once his initial shock had dissipated. He thanked Solace for saving him, then went on with what he had been about to say before the blowout.

  "Did you talk to anyone who actually saw a mutineer, or a Free-Birther, or whatever?"

  "Huh? Is this the time to...? No, I guess I didn't. But we saw those aliens, or whatever they—"

  "Exactly. Whatever they were. They could have been anything. Someone is playing an awfully complicated trick on us. Something's happening, but it isn't what we've been led to believe."

  "We've been led to believe something?"

  "We've been given clues. Sometimes contradictory, sometimes absolutely insane, and encouraged to think a mutiny is going on; and this recorder proves it isn't happening. Listen." And he played back the recordings of various announcements they had heard earlier. It sounded tinny in their middle-ear receivers.

  "But what does that prove?" Solace wanted to know. "Maybe this thing just taped them as they happened."

  Quester was dumfounded for a moment. The theory of a vast conspiracy had appealed to him, even if he didn't know the reason for it.

  He played past the point of the computer's announcement and sighed with relief when he heard that there was more. They let it natter on to no one about crises in the engine room, spillage in the second auxiliary reactor, and so on. It was obvious that it was playing a scenario that could no longer happen. Because the ship had already broken down completely and they were headed directly for...