Tug was as miserable as he imagined it was possible to be. And yet every passing minute, his discomfort increased, proving to him it was possible to be even more sick, disoriented, and unhappy than he had previously thought. And yet he stubbornly straddled Evangeline’s nerve trunk, did not relinquish their docked tangling of ganglia. He wished he could be sure he was successful at keeping her from knowing how distressed he was, but he could no longer tell even that. To relinquish her ganglia, to be the one to break contact, would be to admit he had no control over her at all. And so he remained coupled to her, his misery becoming more and more acute as she adjusted her body to the pressures and atmosphere of the Earth. Planet-sickness, they called this, and he had never thought to endure it until the day he returned Home at the end of his encystment, in honor and glory, to be attended by the best physicians as they eased him through the adaptation ordeal. It would have been a planned reintroduction to gravity, his body protected by a new shell, and Evangeline instructed in a smooth entry. This discomfort might have been worth it, if he were emerging from Evangeline’s body in his adult form, leaving behind only an empty cyst and a body shell to welcome the next Arthroplana to inhabit her, if he were to be received with glory, and his segments fertilized and allowed to mature with his knowledge passed on to them. Instead, here he was, sick, aching, and alone inside a rebel Beast, trying to make his more sluggish metabolism adapt as rapidly as hers did, all while approaching a toxic and savage planet.
He waited to die. If the discomfort became any worse, he might start hoping to die. He tried to push that thought from his mind, reminded himself that there was still a chance he’d survive this. If only he’d had sufficient warning of their plans, he could have altered his diet and secreted an exoskeleton, something to give shape and support to his soft body as it faced the rigors of gravity once again. Much too late now to even try. Earth’s gravity was approximately one-third greater than that of his native planet. Did that mean his unprepared body would be crushed by it? He didn’t know.
He was dimly aware of Evangeline’s actions, not because she freely communicated with him but because she was either too busy to shield her thoughts or no longer cared if he heard her. He was grudgingly impressed with how well she’d managed so far. It was far from a perfect entry; still, she was amazingly capable of drawing on her juvenile memories of such entries and exits from a planet’s surface, and remarkably adept at adjusting them to the radically different conditions of this atmosphere and planet. Even as he waited for her to make a major error, he had to admire how rapidly she learned from her minor errors, correcting constantly, improving her handling with every passing second.
He felt another sickening pressure change. Consciousness wavered, but he clung to it. Every gas bladder in his body ached, but he forced them to equalize yet again. He wondered how things were in the gondola. Any other ship would have blown apart by now. But John was such a stickler for preventive maintenance and safety inspections, the damn thing would probably hold together. When he’d come aboard as captain, he’d gone through the gondola from stem to stern, insisting that every piece of equipment, every fail-safe, must meet his standards.
None of that mattered now. They were already dead, and Raef soon to follow, and …
[We’re not going to die.]
There was no mistaking that she addressed him. What he was uncertain about was whether it was pity or sarcasm that tinged her voice. As he had never heard either from her before, nor expected to, it was hard to discern. Harder still to decide if or how to reply to her. He gathered his strength. Finally, in a neutral voice, he asked, “You’re certain?”
[Oh, reasonably.]
Condescension. That was what it was. From a Beastship to an Arthroplana. For a second he felt the fury that would have previously driven him to sting her into penitence for such an affront. But it was engulfed in misery as she adjusted her internal body pressure again. He felt something inside himself give way to pressure. He waited for pain, and when it didn’t come, this was somehow more frightening than agony would have been. At that moment, if he’d had anything left in his arsenal, he’d have struck at Evangeline. As it was, he was limited to keeping her ignorant of his discomfort and fear.
[Why did you treat us so differently?]
The last thing he wanted right now was conversation. Keeping from betraying his pain took so much strength away from him. But if he didn’t reply, she might see it as weakness, especially as her attitude showed that she already guessed at his pain. Each word would take an effort. He tried to sound detached, bored as he said, “Your question is unclear. To whom does ‘us’ refer?”
She was unruffled. He felt her body vibrate for an instant as she made some sort of adjustment, then [Raef and I,] she clarified, as if there had been no interruption. [You have always treated Raef very differently from how you treated me.]
“You and Raef are different. So obviously I would treat you differently.”
[Yet we are in many ways more alike than different.]
“And how is that?” So hard to sound effortless. Tug was forced to shift his grip on her nerve trunk to ease a cramp.
[We are both different species from you, both younger, both less educated. Those are easily proven. And I would add that we are both curious, both dreamers of pretenses, both desirous of being heroes—]
“Raef is Human. You are a Beast.” Tug replied hastily, more to silence her than to answer her. Her new manner of speaking made him almost as uncomfortable mentally as the pressure changes were making him physically. She was reasoning, building thought upon thought with no supervision. Moreover, she was doing it while performing complicated physical maneuvering. It was unnatural, totally outside the realm of what he had been taught a Beast could do.
[And a Human and a Beast are so different that they cannot be treated alike?]
“Putting it simply, yes.”
There was a long silence from her, but he was not sure if it was because she was thinking or because it suddenly seemed necessary for her to make some rapid pressure adjustments. He endured silently, unable to ease himself in any way. After a moment the stresses seemed to lessen. She spoke.
[It seems to me that you treat us differently, not because we are so different but only because your different treatments of us keep us different.]
He was a moment or two unraveling her thought.
[To put it more simply, Raef and I are not really so different. But because you have always treated us differently, we …]
“I don’t need you to put things simply for me to understand them!” Tug was outraged.
[Nor do I. Nor ever did.] Her coldness was almost casual.
This was something that had to be answered, if he was ever to regain control of her. “Perhaps not, now. I’ll admit your thinking—seems more sophisticated.” He had to pause to gather his strength. He hoped the pause seemed natural, thoughtful. “Muse on this, Evangeline. These wonderful new ideas Raef has given you—they’ll only bring you unhappiness. He’s made you a freak. Oh, you’ll have Raef for a while—a very brief while as you and I measure time.” Tug paused to summon strength. Pain. “And then he’ll be gone. And you’ll be alone, forever and ever. —Or you’ll return to what you were, if you can. And you’ll need my help. What if I don’t give it? What will you do?” He asked his question, and stopped speaking, grateful to rest. He was sure he was dying. Things were collapsing inside himself. Could there be this much pain, and death not result?
[What kind of a fool do you take me for?]
Her voice was furious. Tug braced himself for another spate of abrupt pressure changes, but none came. Evidently she wasn’t being that petty, yet. He tried to sound reasonable. So hard to think clearly, to keep her from knowing his agony.
“Not a fool. An innocent. Look at what you will become, Evangeline: a pariah. When Raef is gone, who will entertain you? Who will keep you from loneliness? How will you go among your own kind again, if I am not in control? Their Masters will
make the other Beasts turn on you. You will be ripped to pieces—or driven away. You will end sad and lonely.”
She was silent. Listening? Perhaps. Or perhaps just concentrating on maneuvering. Sometimes it seemed that she paused and listened, but not to him. He shook the thought from his head, refused to ask her about it. Even this casual conversing was only making her more dangerous, leading her further from what she had to be. So now he said, “Evangeline. It doesn’t have to be this way. I can help you. We can still find a way to salvage the situation, to make things the way they used to be. None of this was your fault. We can go back to the way things were, and all of us can be happy.”
[Do you really think so?]
He could not interpret her tone. “I believe so,” he replied cautiously.
[Tug. This is what I believe. I believe I will find a way to be rid of you. And I believe that when Raef is gone, I will have to be my own “entertainment.” And I believe, I suspect anyway, that somewhere, somehow, I will find other Beasts like myself. Surely my whole species cannot be afflicted with parasites.]
“Evangeline, I …”
[So sorry, Tug. I am very busy right now, doing things you would not understand or be interested in. I cannot entertain you anymore just now.]
And she was gone. Physically there was still a joining, but the silence in his mind was complete. “Evangeline!” he called out, too late. Body fluid was beginning to leak from his joints. Misery claimed him.
So this was his world. She drifted above it placidly, suspended well above its harsh surface by the gas trapped in her now-swollen bladders. How peculiar a sensation, after so much time, to float as she had as a juvenile. Why had Tug never brought her down to a planet’s surface like this? Why had she never been allowed to explore any of the worlds they had orbited so often, so boringly? It was hard not to see it as a malicious withholding, a deliberate effort to keep her ignorant. But she had no time for that now. She shook the thought from her mind, just as if she were Raef selecting a new pretense. But this, this was no pretense. This was her adventure, Evangeline, the hero, rescuing her shipwrecked crew.
Evangeline tried to perceive the Earth as Raef had shown it to her, with his colors, scents, and sounds. She flexed her sensory pores, and they belched out the long tendrils of flagella, rich in sensory cells. They still did not show her this world as Raef had seen it, but she was able to draw enough parallels to give some parts of it names. There, that ribbon of motion, cooler in temperature than the surrounding solid formations, that was a river. Mentally she colored it grey, tipped ripples with white, saw the thermal eddies above it as indications of eddying water. Ah, now she saw the relationship between his “colors” and her perceptions of light! How narrowly he named them! She would have to discuss this with Raef, explain to him what he was missing. She expelled gas from her bladders to come closer to the river, let the winds above it push against her immense bulk. She countered their impetus with a lazy stroke from one of her fans. So easy to control motion in this soupy atmosphere. She spun herself in a slow circle, let one sensory flagella trail briefly across the liquid surface of the river. Interesting contrast. Now over the solid terrain again. She sensed the brief temperature drop her shadow cast over—what? Acres, Raef would say—acres of land beneath her. Tiny points of warmth, in a cluster that suddenly spread out and raced away before her. She overtook them lazily; some sort of life-form. She sampled their exhalations, measured their velocity and mass, and decided they might be wolves. [Hunt well, my brothers,] she told them, so she could tell Raef later that she had greeted them, and with a waft of her fans, she sped on over the land, leaving them far behind. She made Raef’s delighted laugh in her mind, wished he were in her womb, sharing this with her. Another time, perhaps. He had been so right. There would be much they could do together that was not pretense.
But she was not here to play, she sternly reminded herself, and then lost several minutes in the delighted realization that that was what she had been doing. Playing. Random actions taken for entertainment only. A Master would never have let her discover this, would never have allowed her so much time that was not devoted to a specific task and unsupervised. A Master would have given her a sharp jolt by now, to chastise her and put her about her business. And she would never have known this, this—she wafted her fans again, spun in lazy spirals that carried her higher—this play. But now she could tell herself what to do.
And that thought was enough to make her focus. Tug would say it was beyond her to plan and accomplish something on her own. She would show him, just as Raef had had to always prove himself to people who doubted him. And it would be easy.
The shuttle’s beacon was still screaming hopefully. In some ways it reminded her of the strange signals she had heard when she was negotiating her descent through the Earth’s atmosphere. She still could not place the familiarity of the transmission, but something about the emergency beacon reminded her of it; perhaps the way it called for help without forming thoughts.
[Coming!] She called to it in Mom’s voice, which of course it could not hear or respond to. [I’ll be right there.]
The same foolish thought kept rattling through Raef’s head. “I never got to go to Disneyland, but it doesn’t matter anymore.” He giggled wildly, then wiped his bruised hand over his face again. Wet. Was he still crying? He supposed so. He sat up ponderously, slowly drew his tunic off over his head. He wiped his eyes with it, then blew his nose on it. Slimy. Stupid things were hardly absorbent at all.
He swung his legs carefully over the side of the lounger, then leaned on it as he maneuvered himself into a standing position. His back was cramped from being buckled into the small chair for so long. And gravity, constant gravity, was a thing he hadn’t reckoned with. This wasn’t a fuge he could get out of when he was tired. He let go of the lounger, tried a cautious step. Not too bad. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to go far to make this rescue, though. He shuffled like an old man as he made his way to the disposal chute and shoved the tunic down it. He tugged out a clean set of clothes, donned the tunic.
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, back to the lounger and sit down. And there it was, right in the monitor. Earth, blessed, beautiful Earth. He looked at it, and started shaking again. He wiped his eyes on the trousers he still clutched. Damn.
It had all been too much, too fast. First she’d scared the crap out of him with that descent. Every single instrument had gone up into the red and stayed there. Twice he’d felt sudden pressure drops that quickly stabilized; he suspected at least a couple of bulkheads had blown. He remembered hearing alarms, but whatever the crisis had been, the ship’s automatic systems had handled it. At the time he hadn’t been able to worry about it; terror had had him firmly in its clutch.
He’d wished he’d been paying more attention to the monitors and spent less time gripping the armrests and clenching his eyes shut. All he knew was that when the vibration had eased, he’d opened his eyes and looked out upon home.
Home.
She was there, she was real, she wasn’t dead. Coming closer and closer, like the world’s longest approach to an airport runway, it had been the sweetest, wildest ride of his life. At first he had told himself it couldn’t be true, that the patches of color on the monitors would resolve eventually to poisoned swaths of bare soil or stone.
But they hadn’t.
It wasn’t the Earth he had known, that was true. Gone were the geometric shapes of tilled and planted and fallow fields in their varying shades of green. No freeways nor highways nor winding country roads sliced through the land; no cities loomed high on the horizons, no small towns nestled beside the rivers. Of the works of man, no sign remained.
And it was a different nature at work that he saw as well. Life was less lush. As Evangeline took him in, as her velocity slowed and she lost altitude, it was a sterner and more pragmatic ecology that he glimpsed. Prairie, he’d tried to tell himself at first. That’s why it looks so sparsely planted. This was prairie, arid and harsh, s
wept by winds. Somewhere, soon, they’d come to a green river valley, or forested foothills, or …
But they hadn’t. No wide grasslands, and the river they crossed supported only a narrow strip of green on either side of it. The hillsides he saw were sere, each twisted tree a monumental triumph that stood alone. There were belts of brushland, and then stretches of land covered with plants that weren’t grasses, something he had never seen before, some kind of plant life that hugged the earth in a miserly grip. No herds of buffalo, not even cattle gone wild, no wild horses. He sighted one pack of animals, but their shapes were unfamiliar to him; predators or prey, hooved or clawed, he could not tell, only that they ran very well, bellies close to the earth.
It should have saddened him to see the depletion of species. So little had survived, and whatever would come forth from the infinite variety of nature to fill in the ranks was slow in stepping forward. Instead of mourning, he had sat in the lounger and grinned foolishly as he wept. He had always thought of himself as the sole survivor, the last of Earth’s true children to exist. The misshapen creatures who called themselves Humans now, with a capital H, they were not of Earth. They were descended of those who’d surrendered the planet, those who’d cut and run. As I did, he admitted, as I would have if they’d let me. But they didn’t, and here I am, I’m home, and maybe it’s not the Garden of Eden, maybe it’s more like the plains of Purgatory, but it’s home.
Alien Earth Page 35
