Not that John would ever have that problem. What he was starting to feel for Connie was no more than protectiveness for someone he suspected had once been treated very badly. And a certain companionability for someone who was starting to share a few of his interests. He was pleased she was enjoying the things he made her learn, pleased to see that the physical workouts were making her, well, stronger and more fit. And she liked him well enough to get him a cup of stim now and then. That was all. He felt no sexual attraction to Connie at all. Masturbation would more than suffice for this trip, and if he required more than that when he got back to port, he’d go to a professional. Go to someone who was trained to handle it rather than take a chance on ruining a good friendship with physical stresses. He remembered a few trips back, when Amy of the Armadillo had approached him to ask a “favor.” They’d always been friends, and so she’d thought he’d be able to take care of a little urge she had.
It had been a disaster. Amy had been more disappointed than he was; he still didn’t understand why she made such a big difference between his hand and his penis. All the instruction he’d received had emphasized end result rather than apparatus used. But she’d cried afterward and bitterly complained that she had wanted “the real thing, from a man, not a grope from a kid.” He’d told her to get some Adjustment counseling for her attitude problem, and she’d stormed off, flinging back at him that she should have gone to a professional in the first place. They hadn’t communicated since then, not that they were in the same port at the same time all that much. Still and all, it had been an interesting experience, touching a matured woman. He could still remember the soft heaviness of her breasts, nearly filling his hands. And the ways she had touched him….
He glanced down at himself and sighed. It probably wasn’t going to be as easy as he had planned.
She held a cool rag against his forehead. He eyed her warily, but allowed her to touch him. He was much too weak from his injuries to resist her, anyway. She brushed the damp hair back from his forehead. “Who are you?” she asked him gently. He flinched at the sound of her voice, couldn’t comprehend her words. Overhead, stars were shining through the interlaced limbs of the birch trees. Night had come, while he had lain unconscious and she had tended to him. He felt the cool touch of her fingers as she traced the old scars that showed shiny against the deep tan of his arms. “What kind of a wild man have I found for myself?” she pondered aloud. And once more, he did not understand her words, but her tone …
[Wild man?]
Raef reluctantly drew back from his dreaming. Yeah, wild man. A man living like an animal, like a wild beast, remember.
[Doing only as he pleased. Not harmonizing.]
In a sense. Surviving the old way, without technology. Interacting with the natural environment, like wild animals did. An old kind of harmonizing, a wild kind.
[Wild harmonizing.]
Yeah. Filling the old place in the world, being part of the natural world instead of trying to master it or control it.
[This is a pretense.]
Yeah, now it is, I guess. Once, it would have been possible, but now it’s a pretense.
Mother’s voice was silent. Raef drew a deep breath, willed himself back, started the slide back into the real dreams….
[Pretense it for me.]
What?
[Pretense it for me. I am unable to pretense for myself, but I wish to do it.]
Raef was jolted. He came awake enough to be aware of the womb around him. A slow tickling of wariness went through him. The mother voice had always been with him, part of the deep dreaming. She had been an intermittent questioner, a witness to his dreams. He’d never questioned that she was a part of himself that surfaced in the deep dreaming. He’d never given it serious thought; probably it was just memories of his mom, an effect of his isolation. But lately her interruptions had come often, and the questions had been peculiar.
[Please. Pretense for me, make me different.]
Uh, okay. What do you want?
[Want?]
What shall I pretend you are?
[I do not know. I do not know how to do this. Pretense me something you like.]
Raef tried to make sense of what she was asking him. Pretend her to be something he’d like. He’d liked his mother. Did she think he hadn’t loved her? Sure there had been times when he’d wished she’d been different, wished she could be a stay-at-home mother, like other kids had. But she’d been there for him as much as she could. Still, sometimes when he’d come home from school, and taken the key from his neck, as he’d turned it in the lock, he’d pretended …
[Yes?]
“Door’s open, honey! I’m in the kitchen.”
Raef followed his nose, homing in on the rich melting scent of hot chocolate-chip cookies. He pushed open the kitchen door and she was there, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt with green and pink fluorescent palm trees on it, not her grungy old waitress uniform. And she didn’t have on her thick white shoes that he hated, she was barefoot. She was smiling, looking only a little tired. Her blond hair was loose to her shoulders, not in that stupid net she had to wear to work around food.
“Get yourself some juice, hon. You can have three cookies now, but no more than that. Don’t want to spoil your dinner.”
[Stop. This is not the pretense for me. You are still doing the pretense for yourself. Be me. Pretense it for me.]
For a long moment, Raef was stymied. He felt his eyelids twitch, and he came perilously close to breaking out of the dream entirely. How to do it? Be his mother? He couldn’t. How could he know how it had been for her? He couldn’t.
But he knew how he wished it had been. That he could do.
She smiled down on her son as she brought the cookies to the table. She set them in front of him, put a folded red paper napkin by his plate, just as if he were an important customer. Her son. He looked up at her and she could tell he’d had another bad day at school. The other kids were so damn cruel to him. No matter how many times she complained to the teachers and school, nothing changed. But he was home now, and she could take care of him and protect him. Nothing could hurt him while he was in her care. She reached across the table to ruffle his soft hair. She loved him so much, it brought tears to her eyes.
“Hey, kid! Guess what?” she said quickly, to cover her brimming emotions. “Daddy’s coming home tonight. He’s gonna eat dinner and take a nap, and then we’re all going to pile in the car and go to the drive-in movie. How’s that sound?”
“Great!” Raef looked up at her with a cookie in his mouth and a ring of juice around his lips. She …
[touches his hair again. That is a good pretense, the feel of it.]
Okay.
She ruffled his hair, feeling the softness of it under her fingers. He reached up suddenly and hugged her, hard. “I love you, Mom,” he said abruptly. “I know how hard you try. It’s not your fault you can’t make things easier for me.”
For a minute it hurt her to realize just how badly he got hurt sometimes, but at least he knew how hard she tried to make it better. She bought him the right kind of jeans, the right kind of shirts, his sneakers were just like everyone else’s at school, the other kids shouldn’t have picked on him. But they did, no matter how she complained. But here at home, at least …
[I will protect him, I will take care of him. No one will hurt him here. I touch his soft hair again. We smell the cookie smell together and hug again. He is safe with me.]
Go ahead. That’s right, you’re doing it. Go ahead.
[He likes my hair long and loose. He likes me to be home and not a worker in a food place. What is home?]
The kitchen was not big, but she kept it very clean. The cupboards, the frig, and the stove were all big and white. The tiles on the floor were yellow, and she had cut out yellow flowers from some old Contac paper and put them on the corners of the cupboards. She grew plants on the windowsill, little plants with soft fuzzy leaves and purple flowers with little yellow ce
nters, African violets. She had tin canisters on the counters, white with flowers on them, and yellow lids. They held flour, sugar, coffee, and tea bags. There was a cookie jar, too, shaped like Big Bird, and she started to put the cookies in it.
[The rich-smelling chocolate-chip cookies.]
Yeah. They’re still warm, and a little chocolate stuck to her fingers. She licked it off.
[This is taste? Taste is good. I can eat a cookie, like Raef?]
Yeah, of course, she ate a cookie. Hell, she took the whole cookie jar to the table and they sat down together and ate cookies and drank juice. Eat as many cookies as you want. No one cares if you get fat. It’s only a dream, Mom. We can do anything we want to in dreams.
[She loves him.]
He loved her, too.
John was preening, and Connie was taking apart yet another mechanical contrivance. Tug surveyed her task list. She was scheduled to do a complete physical check of the survey equipment they’d be putting into orbit, and then run a command response check and a full operations sequence. Tomorrow she was scheduled to do a check of the cranes, including a manual lubing of every fitting. Busywork. Work to keep her too busy to entertain Tug. The following day, she was to modify suits. John had left detailed instructions on that, with a submenu of the directory for the suit locker that listed all the adapting parts in the inventory and complete directions for the modification sequence. He’d included his new measurements, and directions for Connie to measure herself. All that, even though Tug knew there was no extravehicular activity scheduled. Stupid busywork.
Tug paused. Or there might be another motive. He studied again John’s new measurements. Was this a ploy to draw Connie’s attention to his changing body? Did he think that when she measured herself, her new measurements would convince her that she, too, was approaching the change? Was John capable of such subtlety and deviousness? The thought intrigued Tug.
And what if he, too, decided to take a part in this? The temptation to interfere surfaced in his thoughts. In an instant he saw exactly how he could do it. Reduce the aging and growth retardants in their food and breathing compounds. Better yet, introduce a hormonal stimulant. Serendipity had furnished him with the ideal laboratory situation for observing Human sexuality. He could introduce his own tensions, utilizing pheromones. It was an unprecedented opportunity.
His back plates rippled as he refused the temptation. No. He had to let it occur naturally, first. Later on, perhaps on the journey home, he might introduce variables. Raef, even, might contribute to it. He was getting old; Tug had better make the best use of whatever years his stowaway had left. He wondered how Connie would react to Raef? Could Raef be used to stir John to rivalry, perhaps even physical conflict?
An ancient excitement stirred in Tug. Tug quelled it and tried to feel shame at his vicarious interest. Sometimes not even an Arthroplana could totally ignore the ancient biological heritage of conflict and strife. He wondered, not for the first time, why intellectual creatures only evolved in competitive ecologies. It was, of course, only a theory that competition created intellect. At any time they might encounter a new sentient race that was the product of cooperative evolution. Undeniable, though, that intelligent races denied competition either created it for themselves, or stagnated. He wondered what Humanity’s ultimate response would be.
He was procrastinating. He forced himself to face it. He hated confrontations with Evangeline, no matter how minor. But this was an infraction that could not be ignored. He wished he could figure out what was unsettling the Beast and rectify it. Instead, she would have to be punished. There was no other way, and it was best done soon, while her memories of her mischief were still fresh. Some said that a Beast should only be punished if caught in the act; otherwise, such discipline only confused it, for it might not connect its infraction with its punishment. Best do it quickly and soon.
Tug engaged her. “Evangeline!” He summoned her sharply, surprised that she had not been waiting for his contact.
She acknowledged contact but her reply seemed unfocused, almost careless. Still, Tug refrained, stinger poised. He would not discharge the nematocyst until he was sure she knew why she was being punished.
There had been two disturbances, he told her, within the Human’s gondola. Was she aware of them?
Confusion. Disturbances? What had happened?
Nothing as serious as might have happened. One disturbance involved light, the other, temperature. Neither had fluxed so severely as to harm the Humans, but they might have. Tug himself had not initiated the flux. Only one other could be responsible.
He waited, but Evangeline made no reply. He could sense her waiting anxiously.
Had she not been forbidden, from the very first installation of the gondola, from using those parts of her body? Had she not been cautioned that those nerve trunks had been adapted to allow Tug to regulate the Human’s living environment? Had she not been warned that the merest twitch might upset their life support?
Itchy. Couldn’t stand the itch. Had to stop it.
Tug was aghast. It was an outright lie, if such a thing were possible for a Beast. If she had said she’d forgotten or were even curious, he might have been mollified. But she was offering not an apology but an excuse. For a Beast to thus defy an Arthroplana was unthinkable. Every instinct he had was outraged, and he made no reply except to plunge his stingers deep and set the barbs.
He listened to her pain, and then her pleas until he was satisfied she would not lie to him again.
11
JOHN STARED AT THE SCREEN. He was five days into his orbit Wakeup, and the view of the planet still seemed so beautiful as to be incomprehensible. He increased the magnification on the image until it filled the entire screen, then leaned back in his lounge to study it. Could he trust what he saw? Streaks of greens and blues and wide swaths of brown and yellow in an incredible variety of shades interrupted the white swaddling of the planet. Could it really be that intensely colored?
“Tug,” he said softly, “enhance, please.”
The image rippled minutely as contrasts tightened. The beauty remained, only more clearly defined. Five days and John still wasn’t weary of it, or immune to her wonder.
“It really would look like that, to my naked eye?”
“Only much smaller, of course. You have it on the highest magnification.” For once, there was no chivying in Tug’s voice.
“It’s beautiful.”
“From here,” Tug agreed.
John waited for him to go on. Mercifully, he didn’t. Maybe old Tug was losing his edge. He’d seemed preoccupied lately.
“Tug. Where’s Connie?”
“In her personal quarters, on her couch. Her reader is on, but pulse and respiration levels suggest she has fallen asleep. Do you wish me to summon her?”
“No, that’s fine. I don’t need her just now.”
“I agree. You’ve been driving her hard lately. Yesterday she put in a solid nine hours of physical labor operating the deploying equipment for the landers. The day before that, seven hours, twelve if you count the suiting-up drills you demanded be practiced. Today she completed seven, releasing the cameras into orbit. That’s not counting the two-hour physical toughening session you demanded she complete. Don’t you fear she will bring charges against you when you dock? I’ve counted seven separate violations of crew rights in this Wakeup alone.”
“That’s probable. And how many mission errors or malfunctions have there been?”
“Zero.”
“Correct. I think Connie sees the usefulness of what she’s been doing. This is one mission I don’t want to screw up, Tug. All the rehearsals were to guarantee that. And I think all the safety precautions and equipment checks are worth it. Besides, it would never occur to Connie to bring charges. Not unless you suggested it to her.”
“No. I have not. Though I have pondered aloud why she is doing all the physical checkouts of the gear and equipment.”
“Thank you, Tug. I’ll ad
d ‘inciting to mutiny’ to my list of your personal annoying habits. Did it occur to you that I’m long familiar with all that equipment and gear, while most of Connie’s previous ship time was simply cargo hauling?”
“Connie did make an observation of that sort.”
“Did she?” John fought down an inclination to smile. It pleased him unreasonably that she had justified his actions to Tug. “Give me a status report on our cameras and landers.”
“All normal. You have only to consult your own readouts to know that.”
John waited, then sighed. “Anything more than that? Any unusual findings?”
“Nothing accessible to us. All data that is being recorded is being kept safe for the Conservancy. All we’re receiving is the information that lets us know the equipment is where it should be, and functioning normally.”
“Hmm. And our own eyes?”
“Don’t tell us much more. Refer to the screen, please.”
John glanced up. Sunlight glinted off a small object’s vanes. “What’s that?”
“The closest camera satellite, at full magnification.”
“And everything’s fine.”
“Yes. John, one might almost think you were hoping something would go wrong.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Tug.” John stared at the satellite, wondered if it were the one that would malfunction, and if so, when. A part of him dreaded the event, while another side longed for it. He’d given up already on locating any kind of beacon or signal that would guide him to the supposed “time capsule.” Tug had mocked him for requesting monitoring across all bands for some regular transmission from the Earth’s surface, but had complied. There had been nothing, and there wasn’t going to be. If he felt any disappointment, he put it down to his own gullibility. How could anyone suppose anything would survive on such a geologically and climatically unstable planet? Like as not, any “time capsule” was at the bottom of a sea, or encased in a glacier, or buried under the deposits of sandstorms. If it had ever existed in the first place. Probably the last survivors on Earth had had more pressing things to think about than leaving information. His biggest regret was that he had hoped such a beacon would guide him to an area suitable for landing a shuttle. Any such prepared landing site would have shared the fate of the beacon that marked it.
Alien Earth Page 23
