Probability Sun

by Nancy Kress

  * * *

  “No,” Hadjil Pek Voratur said. “Not again. You told me two days ago to summon sunflashers and tell all of World how shared reality had left us forever. And now it is back! If the sunflashers had done as I asked, I would have been called a fool, and rightly so. Perhaps I would even have been thought of as a man who does not share reality. I will not summon the sunflashers again.”

  “You must,” Pek Sikorski said. “Pek Voratur … shared reality is going to leave us again. Tomorrow. This time it will not return. The … the telescope on our metal flying boat saw the great gift of the First Flower, the living rock. It started to die, briefly regained strength—you have seen plants do that, and dying people! And now it is dying again, and shared reality will cease.”

  “So you said last time,” Voratur said. His round shiny face quivered beneath his creased skull ridges. “Not again. No.”

  Soshaf Pek Voratur said quietly, “Father…”

  Voratur turned to him. “Yes?”

  “We could have the fleet move a little way off shore. Let the agents choose the best men to stay aboard, and give the others the night away. You could tell the agents by comlink.” After a moment he added, “When shared reality left a two day ago, someone smashed the front gate and someone stole several gold goblets.”

  “It will not happen again,” Voratur told his son.

  “No, Father.”

  “I will tell the ship agents. Pek Sikorski, Pek Brimmidin, may your blossoms perfume your heart.”

  They were dismissed. Enli said, “May your flowers gladden the souls of your ancestors.”

  Back in Enli’s room, Pek Sikorski said, “You felt no head pain at Voratur’s change of mind.”

  “No,” Enli said, puzzled. She tried to see what Pek Sikorski meant, and failed.

  “Because to the three of you, what Soshaf suggested wasn’t a change of mind, was it? You all knew he would not believe that shared reality will go away again, but that he would also protect his trading ships in case it did.”

  “Of course,” Enli said. “Isn’t that what anyone would do?”

  “Shared reality,” Pek Sikorski said sadly. “Enli…”

  “What?”

  “I want you to take my comlink. Here. Hide it someplace. Unlike the links we gave Pek Voratur, it will reach the flying ship anywhere in your star system. If anything happens to me in the next fiveday … if I die somehow … I want you to link with Pek Kaufman and tell him what’s happening on World. Will you do that for me, Enli?”

  “Yes.”

  “Poor Enli, I’ve made your head hurt.”

  “No, you haven’t,” Enli said, and it was true. She and Pek Sikorski shared the reality of what would happen tomorrow. Enli would have preferred the head pain of not knowing.

  * * *

  Shared reality disappeared the next day at mid-morning. Once again, there was nothing to feel. But this time, Enli knew.

  Pek Sikorski had been watching her carefully as they ate breakfast, washed in the visitors’ bath, sat in the sunshine in a courtyard garden. She said, “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. It’s gone.”

  “We’ll go to Pek Voratur now.”

  Through courtyard after courtyard, garden after garden. Never had Enli taken such a walk. That one knows—look how she hurries toward the kitchen, not meeting Enli’s eyes, her basket of larfruit trembling on her arm. That boy, absorbed in weeding flowerbeds, does not yet realize. That man knows, remembers from last time, and will steal something: Look at the way he eyes the archway to that rich personal room. He will violate shared reality. Enli saw it, and her head did not hurt.

  Pek Voratur sat in his personal room with Soshaf and his second son, Tebil, barely out of childfur. Tebil looked frightened. They all knew.

  Pek Sikorski wasted no words in greeting. “Pek Voratur, when everyone in your household shared reality, anyone would do any task that reality required. But even then there must have been servants who did tasks more reliably, did not quit against difficulties, and shared with you a greater…” Enli saw her search for a word. “Loyalty,” Enli thought, but the word was Terran, and there was nothing the same in World. “… personal responsibility. Was that so?”

  Soshaf Pek Voratur answered for his father. “Yes.”

  “Gather all such servants and agents together here. Now. Explain to them what has happened. Then set them the task of watching the gates and doorways of your household, as they would be watchful against any unreal person who attacked you.”

  Pek Voratur said, “No unreal person would be allowed to live.”

  “Make a picture in your mind of a world in which many such live, and many more are in the temporary confusion and fear that may seize anyone if a gliffir attacked them. Make a picture in which people—some people—have become gliffirs.”

  Gliffirs existed only in story, large dangerous animals who breathed fire and shat knives. Enli realized that Pek Sikorski had rehearsed this speech.

  Pek Voratur said, “I understand,” and Soshaf Pek Voratur left to find the servants Pek Sikorski had described. The boy Tebil put his face in his hands and cried out. “Stop that,” his father said sharply.

  The boy did not obey.

  Pek Sikorski moved to Tebil and put a hand on his arm. Her voice, with its accented World, was the gentlest thing Enli had ever heard. “He’s frightened, Pek Voratur. Even though you are not.” She looked steadily at the trader.

  Enli understood. Pek Sikorski was showing him how to reach toward Tebil’s reality. From Voratur’s own. From a different place.

  The moment spun itself out. Finally Voratur said harshly, “My son will not be a coward, crying over something as small as a climb up cliffs for birds’ eggs!” He turned his broad fleshy back on the trembling boy.

  “Pek Voratur,” Pek Sikorski said more loudly, “Tebil is frightened. Even though you are not. That is reality now. You can share it with him if you choose. If you choose.”

  Voratur did not turn around.

  At that moment a small figure catapulted through the door and skidded to a stop in front of Pek Sikorski. Essa Pek Criltifor, the girl who had gone up to the metal flying boat and played with Sudie. The girl who had not been afraid when shared reality left them in space. Essa grinned. “Shared reality has left again, Pek Sikorski!”

  Pek Sikorski said nothing. Essa turned to Voratur’s stiff back. “Soshaf Pek Voratur said you are looking for servants who will still belong to the household without shared reality and will help to protect it. I will still belong to the household, Pek Voratur.”

  Slowly the trader turned around.

  “I will help protect the household, I’m not afraid!”

  Voratur studied the girl. Her neckfur was uncombed, her thin face dirty, her black eyes shining. Voratur smiled at her. “I believe you, young Essa.”

  Across the room, Tebil, still trembling under Pek Sikorski’s hand, stared at Essa with sudden hatred in his frightened eyes.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon Enli walked alone to the village. If she had told them she was going there, Pek Sikorski would have advised against it and Pek Voratur forbidden it. Enli didn’t tell them.

  There was a guard—a new word, taken from Terran—at the household gate. He carried a knife and a club, looking worried about both. Earlier in the day three men, brothers from the look of them, had tried to force their way into the household. There had been a fight, a whirling uncoordinated mass of pushing and shoving and hitting out wildly, until the men had run off. One of Voratur’s householders had been cut with a knife. Voratur had ordered all guards to have knives and dubs, which frightened half of them so much they told Soshaf Pek Voratur they no longer wanted to be guards. He let them stop, of course. Pek Sikorski had helped Voratur talk to others and choose new guards.

  She was very busy, everywhere at once, advising Voratur, comforting those so scared they could barely move, explaining to the sunflashers, whom Voratur had finally summoned, wh
at to flash from their towers. Half the sunflashers, it turned out, had also stopped performing their duties. In the far distance, visible from the highest Voratur roof, a village was on fire.

  Nonetheless, Enli walked alone to Gofkit Jemloe. After the first panic, quiet had descended. The road was deserted. People stayed indoors, barricading their houses. “That won’t last,” Pek Sikorski said wearily. “They can’t hide from it forever. And reality isn’t shared within the houses, either. This is only the beginning.” She hadn’t said what the end would be, and Enli hadn’t asked.

  Behind her, she heard footsteps. When she whirled around, nobody was there.

  Enli’s breath tangled in her throat. She had a knife in her hand but knew she could never use it, Not possible. Not on a person.

  Panting, she scanned the plentiful bushes, bright with jellitib and canarib. Nothing.

  Enli resumed walking. The footsteps returned and she broke into a run. Feet pounded after her. Then Essa threw her arms around Enli’s waist from behind. “I caught you!”

  “Essa! You…” Enli stopped. The girl looked up at her, still clutching Enli’s waist, grinning. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous out here?”

  “Then why are you here?” Essa said logically. “I’m fast and I hide good. Nobody will hurt me.”

  Probably true, Enli thought. Hurting was too new. Hiding came easier to children. There was no comfort in the thought.

  “Besides,” Essa continued, “I’m Pek Voratur’s messenger. He sent me after you with a message.”

  “What is it?”

  Essa’s lips moved in rehearsal. Then, in a surprising and wicked mimicry of Voratur’s booming voice, she said, “Tell that crazy woman she’s too valuable to risk roaming around the countryside!”

  Despite herself, Enli laughed. The laugh ended in a gasp for air. Picture a World where people could not go roaming around the countryside!

  “You know, Pek Brimmidin,” Essa said in her high voice, “I should not say this, but … but I like having shared reality gone.”

  “I know you do,” Enli said, and couldn’t tell whether her own tone contained more sadness, or anger, or bewilderment. “Why?”

  Essa hesitated. “It’s … I don’t know.” Another hesitation. “I can think things now. Without head pain.”

  “What things, Essa?”

  The girl said simply, “My things.”

  “I see,” Enli said, and she did. Her mood lifted a little. Maybe it would not be so bad. Maybe Pek Sikorski was wrong, and the worst was over. Maybe—

  “Someone’s coming,” Essa said abruptly, “on a big bicycle. Very fast.”

  Enli shaded her eyes against the sun. A figure far down the road, speeding along at an amazing rate, much faster than any bicycle could go … a big man …

  “Run!” she told Essa, and then grabbed at her. “No, wait … it’s Pek Gruber!”

  “Who’s that?” Essa asked, without fear.

  Pek Gruber. Come to take Pek Sikorski away. No, the big ship had already flown away from World forever, Pek Sikorski had told her so after talking to Pek Kaufman an hour ago. Pek Gruber was not coming to take his mate away. He was coming to join her, on World. Because she was his mate, because he didn’t want to leave her, because even without shared reality he had loyalty.

  Not like Calin. Calin …

  “Who’s that?” Essa repeated. “Is his bicycle a machine that goes by itself, like the flying boat?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s very big. Bigger than the other Terrans. Is he coming to help us protect the Voratur household?”

  “Yes. He is.”

  “Without shared reality? To help us anyway?”

  “Yes,” Enli said, and she walked forward to meet him, Essa following eagerly at her heels.

  TWENTY-THREE

  ABOARD THE ALAN B. SHEPARD

  In the military, it can be more fatal to admit you made a mistake than to actually make one.

  Lyle Kaufman awoke in his quarters, his head pounding and his bowels watery. Too much celebrating at last night’s party. And wouldn’t it be nice if he could actually believe that celebrating was the sole cause of the pain in his head. “Head pain”—that was what the natives of World coped with all the time. No wonder they’d never developed a military. The Worlders who had to make its decisions would all die of cerebral thrombosis.

  Dieter Gruber had made his decision, shuttling down to the planet at the last possible moment to join his wife. Kaufman didn’t expect to see either of them ever again. Most likely they would die on World, probably soon. With them, if Ann was right, would die several million natives, due to Kaufman’s decision to remove the artifact from World. But no one at Solar Alliance Defense Command would hold that against Kaufman.

  Marbet Grant, a civilian reporting to Kaufman, had released one of the Faller’s hands against both direct orders and Grafton’s fury. The prisoner might have figured out a way to kill himself, removing the only source humans had for information about the enemy. But the Faller had not in fact killed himself, and so no one at SADC would hold that against Kaufman.

  Tom Capelo had discovered what the artifact did—or at least what its first four settings did—without discovering the principles that made the thing work. Capelo was in intellectual despair over that. The military would be unhappy that, without the science, the artifact could not be duplicated. Especially since it appeared that the enemy had duplicated at least the shield aspect. Perhaps a different physicist might have discovered more. Capelo, Kaufman’s choice, had not got the job done. But the military had always considered scientists unreliable and suspicious allies, from Los Alamos on. No one at SADC would hold that against Kaufman.

  The artifact, the most valuable weapon ever, had been shown to the enemy by Marbet Grant. That was treason of the highest order, and Marbet might well die for it (don’t think about that yet). But Capelo’s work showed that since the Fallers already had the beam-disrupter shield, they must already have an artifact. So Marbet had revealed nothing, after all. Her act was still treason, but since there were no adverse consequences as a result, and since Kaufman had immediately done the correct thing and had her arrested, probably no one at Solar Alliance Defense Command would hold that against Kaufman.

  But if he admitted he should not have had her arrested, that it had been a mistake, he would be in deep trouble. He was not supposed to make that kind of mistake: irreversible and carrying adverse consequences. “Irreversible” because now Grafton, the line officer in command, had control of Marbet, who had crossed over from civilian personnel to traitor in time of war. “Carrying adverse consequences” because without Marbet, Kaufman could not learn anything more about the artifact from the Faller.

  Marbet might have learned what settings prime seven, prime eleven, and prime thirteen did. Less probable but still possible, she might have learned a hint of the science behind the artifact, a hint to start Capelo in the right direction. Now she could learn nothing, and neither could anyone else without her gift and her accumulated experience with the prisoner.

  Solar Alliance Defense Command wouldn’t hold Marbet’s arrest against him. It was justified by war, by her action, by the book. But if Kaufman admitted it was a mistake, if he brought together again a traitor who gave away military secrets and the “enemy agent” who received them, if he did that against the direct order of the commanding officer, he would be crucified. Certainly court-martialed for disobeying orders. Possibly tried for treason alongside Marbet.

  But unless he brought Marbet and the Faller together again, the artifact as weapon remained only partially known and—the critical element—unduplicatable.

  Kaufman lay on his bunk, staring at the bulkhead. Play it by the book, or disobey an order. It wouldn’t be hard to break Marbet out of the brig. Kaufman already had the first entry code. He recalled the young and inexperienced guard scrambling to his feet and saluting as Kaufman entered the anteroom to the brig. “Yes, sir! The special project team has be
en cleared for entry, sir!” Newbies always got the boring assignments. And prisoners were so rare on an elite flagship like the Alan B. Shepard that the guard room was usually used for storage. Of course, there would be alarms, but Kaufman knew how to forestall their setting off. You manipulated the guard, not the equipment. No, it wouldn’t be hard to break Marbet out by force.

  Kaufman couldn’t do it. He was a soldier.

  But neither could he let the mission finish in this half-assed way.

  There was a middle ground. Admit to Grafton he’d made a mistake, get Grafton to see the necessity of Marbet’s working more with the Faller, convince Grafton to authorize the work. Not a promising middle ground; Kaufman had no reason to think that Grafton would change his inflexible mind, a mind firmly welded to official procedure. But convincing people was what Kaufman did. In military diplomacy, words were weapons. It was worth a shot.

  Kaufman rose from his bunk. He had an appointment with Capelo at 0900 to discuss Capelo’s non-progress on the physics of the artifact. The meeting promised to be caustic and short. But Kaufman might be able to see Grafton before that.

  The middle ground. When hadn’t he taken the middle ground? Risk, but not too much. Adverse consequences for failure, but mild adverse consequences (a letter of reprimand in his promotion jacket). An unpleasant encounter, but not really brutal (the one with Capelo would be nastier). Colonel Lyle Daniel Kaufman, master of the middle ground.

  He started to dress.

  * * *

  Capelo woke to screaming. Instantly he was out of his bunk, scooping up Sudie.

  She thrashed in his arms, still screaming. He pinned her against his chest with one arm, patting her back with the other and crooning. “It’s okay, Sudie, it’s all right sweetheart, it was just a dream. Just a nightmare, baby, it’s all right now, Daddy’s got you…”

  She clung to him, screams changing to sobs, and he went on holding her and murmuring reassuring nonsense. It wasn’t all right, it was getting worse. Three, four, even five nightmares a night. Capelo had moved her from the room she’d shared with Amanda and Jane Shaw into his own quarters, jamming a cot into the crowded space. He wanted Amanda to be able to sleep through the night, and he wanted Sudie with him.