Alien Earth

by Megan Lindholm

  “It’s a little like being trapped inside his dead body,” John had observed at one point. Connie had merely looked at him, and then runged out of the room, into a corridor that obediently brightened at her approach. He’d let her go. He suspected her feelings were as mixed as his own. Relief. Guilt. Loss. Peace. Every time he realized anew that Tug was gone, it stirred a different emotion. “Sometimes I miss him,” he admitted to himself. “But never enough to wish him back.” He thought again of the segments Tug had spoken of. Now there was a different sort of time capsule. He tried to imagine a reason to want to take them Home, to see them fertilized and Tug’s memories revived. He couldn’t find one. Not even for the time capsule’s location? No. Not even for that. Besides, he was sure that last bit had been Tug’s final bluff. Next he’d have to start taking Epsilon stories seriously. He turned his thoughts away from it.

  There was, of course, the small matter of the future to consider. Sooner or later, they’d have to face that. They were alone in a Beastship, adrift for all practical considerations. Should they enter Waitsleep? It would pass time, and let them, perhaps, communicate with Evangeline. Unless, as Tug had insisted, once she had Raef, she’d be disinterested in anyone else. Would they be able to ask her to return them to Earth? Would she communicate with them at all? He had no answers, and didn’t have the courage to enter Waitsleep to find them. What if Evangeline paid no attention to them at all, left them both in Waitsleep forever? Once such a thing wouldn’t have sounded so bad. Now it was the prospect of being not only alone in his dreams, but, worse, alone without Connie. Unthinkable. He suddenly arose and went looking for her.

  He found Connie, later, soaked with sweat but still walking on the treadmill that she’d set to full G. He’d gone to her and held her. “We can’t let it get to us,” he’d told her.

  “It’s not the deadness around us that scares me,” she’d said into his shoulder. “It’s the deadness inside me. I don’t feel anything about it at all, John. It reminds me of Readjustment, how they tried to take away all my feelings about my memories, and kept telling me that things in the past couldn’t hurt me anymore. It always seemed like a threat to me, that they were going to take away whatever I’d learned from things that had happened to me. So I fought it. And they never quite made it come true; that was what I held on to. But this, now …” She’d let her words trail off. “Tug’s dead. And all I can think about it is, so what?”

  “I think it takes time,” he’d offered her, not really believing it himself. They hadn’t spoken of it since then.

  “Hello?” the voice said again, an edge of worry in it.

  “Evangeline,” John said, making it a greeting rather than a question.

  “Yes. Of course. It took me some time to discover how this system is triggered. Of all my parasite had usurped to himself, this he kept most hidden. It is most complicated, involving not only my nervous system, but interfacing with Human technology. But at last I may speak with you. And I hear you, too. But just words, flat words. I do not feel you say them….” The voice trailed off, considering, then came back suddenly. “This voice, it is acceptable to you? It is a synthesis of the voice of Raef’s mother, a very comfortable voice for him.”

  “It’s fine, just fine,” John said quickly.

  In the silence that followed his response, Connie abruptly asked, “Is Raef going to be all right?”

  An even longer quiet followed. When the voice did return, it spoke gently. “He refers to his damaging experience as a stroke. Were he conscious and independent of me, his control of his arms and legs would be limited. But he is in no danger of dying, at this time. I am sustaining him.” Another long pause. “We are glad to be together again. I wish I could think of a way to allow him to speak directly to you. Perhaps in time such a circuit could be devised?”

  “Perhaps in time,” Connie said cautiously. “You’d have to show me what, ah, access exists, and how I could hook into it,” she began. A few seconds later a dizzying array of graphics flashed briefly over a monitor’s screen. Connie stared at it, her eyes scarcely able to focus before one image gave way to another.

  “No,” the voice broke in disgustedly. “This is inadequate. The information can be more efficiently passed to you next time you are in Waitsleep.” Evangeline paused. “If you don’t mind. Raef indicates to me that all Humans require time in privacy, whether with other Humans, or alone in their minds.”

  “Uh, that would be fine,” Connie replied. With every sentence, the voice was becoming more Human sounding, the use of words more vernacular. “You sound very Human,” she commented impulsively.

  The response was still slow, but very pleased. “Thank you. The interface system allows me recourse to a much wider vocabulary than Raef had introduced me to. But selection of the most accurate word available can lead to rather stilted conversation. Do you agree?”

  “Stilted,” John agreed, smiling broadly.

  “Then I shall revert to colloquialism, if that is more comfy for you. Raef insists I tell you about what called me away after I had dropped him off. He seems to think you’ll find it very interesting. You see, I had scarcely landed on your planet before I heard what sounded like one of our infants crying, so I immediately … Um, this may take a while to explain. Shall I have the machines fix you a snack while you’re listening? Milk and cookies, perhaps?”

  It wasn’t anything like John had expected. More like a small space station than anything else. Evidently it had been manned for a short time each year, so that as new information and techniques became available, the equipment in the time capsule could be upgraded or replaced. Those who had left it had assumed that the surface of Earth would be completely devoid of life. So the contents had been organized into ecosystems, with zygotes for each creature held in stasis. The organization was what fascinated John. Each ecosystem was designed to be activated in a preset order aboard the capsule, and with each component taken to Earth and established in its own time, to be gradually enriched by the addition of other species.

  He leaned back again, saw it all in his mind. The docking had gone perfectly, once they’d figured the trick of getting the lock to open. He’d felt like a child when he’d entered the space station. And it wasn’t just the wonder of it all, it was the physical dimensions of the rooms and work stations. He’d kept expecting to turn a corner and find someone Raef’s size confronting him. He’d wished Raef could see it all for himself, but Evangeline had promised to relay it to him from her memory storage. It would have to do.

  “You know,” he said to Connie, “there’s also the question of how the preexisting life-forms that did survive on Earth would be affected by us reintroducing all this stuff. We’re going to have to consider that, too. That’s sturdy biological stock down there. Do we have the right to supplant it with stuff that didn’t meet the evolutionary challenge?”

  Connie sat at a console, punching up information, and comparing readouts from Evangeline’s computers with the capsule’s computers. Her brow was furrowed, and she sat round-shouldered as she considered it all. He went quietly to brace against the back of her chair and look over her shoulder. He looked down at her black curly hair and then touched it softly, to feel its mossy springiness against his hand. He felt her grow still under his touch.

  “Well?” he asked her.

  She leaned back against him, tilted her head up to look at him upside down. “As Raef would say, we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. It’s a little hard to discuss right and wrong, when we don’t know if any of it’s feasible. They assumed we would have a much larger labor force, and that we would be able to carry it on over a two-hundred-year period. Not only would we need more people if we were going to attempt it, we’d have to be able to guarantee a work force of between fifty and one hundred people over the next two hundred years.” She raised her brows at him. “I don’t see how we could do it.”

  “Go back to Delta, and pretend nothing changed. Give our data on Earth to Earth Aff
irmed, who’d pass it on to the Conservancy. Then, report the whole thing quietly to Earth Affirmed and have them begin recruiting …”

  “They’d kill us.” Connie’s voice was very matter-of-fact. “We couldn’t pull it off. Even if Evangeline wanted to go along with it and pretend to be what she once was, you and I have changed too much. They’d catch on to us, and destroy us all.” Connie considered a moment. “What if we didn’t go all the way back to Delta? What if we just haunted the trade routes and recruited that way? From people who you know would be sympathetic to what we want to do?”

  “You’re insinuating that I’m familiar with a certain rebellious element in society?” John asked archly. Connie snorted.

  “It might work, if Evangeline helped us. I could probably come up with, oh, ten or fifteen people that way. It’s more than a little unusual for crew to trade contracts en route, though. And sooner or later, word would get back to Earth Affirmed and they’d wonder why we hadn’t finished our contracted work for them. It might take a little longer, but we’d end up with the authorities after us again. For piracy.”

  “I’d like to be a pirate.” John felt Connie give a slight jump as the new voice entered the conversation. Neither of them were used to Evangeline speaking just yet; and it was often difficult for them to know just how to react to her.

  “Space pirates,” she was going on. “But not other Beastships. That’s too complicated, for now. Let’s raid asteroid mining stations instead. They’re isolated. We could take all the Humans and then destroy the stations. The Conservancy might put it down to some kind of an accident.”

  “That’s crazy.” John laughed quietly. “You’ve been accessing Treasure Island, through my sleep-prep line, haven’t you?” But Connie looked thoughtful.

  “Actually, that might work. We wouldn’t need weapons. We could just go in and announce that the Conservancy was terminating the station as excess. That’s happened before. Get all the people on board and enwombed, then broadcast a real vague general distress call from the station, and then vent it.”

  “And the people that didn’t want to get involved in what we were doing?” John asked curiously. He was so incredulous of what he was hearing that the question almost made sense to him.

  “Put them in Waitsleep,” Connie offered. “And when we have enough of a work force to begin with, we take all the sleepers and drop them off at some other asteroid mining station. But I don’t think there will be that many who won’t want to give it a try. Have you ever spent any time at one of those stations?”

  John shook his head.

  “Well, living aboard Evangeline is a lot nicer. And most of them aren’t on those stations by choice; the Conservancy dumps a lot of ‘borderline unadjusteds’ out there. Just the kind of people who’d jump at the chance to change their lots.” Connie suddenly cocked her head. “The question, Evangeline, is whether you can provide for a much larger population aboard. What do you think?”

  “I … you’re asking me this?” Evangeline sounded flustered.

  “Well, you’re the only one who would know.”

  “Well … space is no problem. If we salvaged supplies from each mining station before we destroyed it and added it to the present ship’s inventory … I foresee no problems.”

  An earlier comment suddenly registered itself in John’s mind’. “Evangeline,” he asked softly. “You said pirating Beastships would be too complicated, for now. Does that mean eventually you would turn on your own kind?”

  “I would turn on the parasites that infest my own kind. John, there is a loneliness within me that not even direct thought could convey to you. A hunger to be a Wild Beast, among other Wild Beasts.”

  He thought he could catch a resonance of her feeling. “Actually, Evangeline, I think I do know the hunger you speak of. Connie and I both understand this feeling.”

  “Then you would understand that eventually I must leave you to go and do this thing?”

  “We understand that eventually we must go with you to do this thing,” Connie said quietly. “Do you think we would let you give us back our world, give us the stars, even, and then we would turn our backs on you?”

  “This begins to sound like a deal, like Raef makes. Good exchanged for good. But, Connie, John, there would be a great deal of danger. If you stayed within me, you might be killed alongside me.”

  “When you help us raid the mining stations, you’ll be taking the same risks,” Connie pointed out. “We have to face that eventually the Conservancy is going to figure out that something weird is going on, or that some Arthroplana is going to wonder whatever happened to Tug and come looking for him. It’s a matter of time before we’ll have to stand and fight for what we want. A few more Beastships allied in our favor could make all the difference.”

  “‘Stand and fight.’” Evangeline sampled the phrase. “Yes, I believe there will be a time for that. But not yet. For now, stealth is ours to use. We’d be foolish not to take advantage of it.”

  “You two are serious, aren’t you?” John asked incredulously.

  “Do you have a better plan?” Connie challenged.

  John shrugged, then abruptly laughed aloud. “Piracy. Why not?”

  It was a quiet place within his own mind, one he never would have found without her. Raef looked around it. He’d put fat Naugahyde chairs in it, and walled it with tall bookcases, like the ones in the old library on Sixth Street. They went all the way to the ceilings and had those slide-along ladders that the librarians had never liked him to use. The ceiling was a starry night sky, but the inside atmosphere was that cozy kind of warm you get in a softly lit room when you come in from a brisk autumn night when the wind is blustery. The smell in the room was the comfortable smell of books and pine forest. Old rugs cushioned the floor like the ones in his grandmother’s apartment, with a lot of deep red in their intricate designs.

  That was all. And he was just sitting in it, not pretending anything, not even reading any of the well-remembered books he’d stocked the room with. Just sitting and being himself. Breathing easy in the young man’s body he’d put on. But that was his only pretense. Other than that, he was just Raef.

  [I’m back.] Soft whisper at the back of his mind.

  “I know. I felt you.”

  [Are you tired?]

  “No. Actually, I was waiting for you. Kind of missing you.” He waved his hand expansively. “It’s done. I think. What do you think of it now?”

  [The ceiling is much better.]

  “I agree.” It had been immense beams the last time he’d let her look at it. Evangeline hadn’t complained, but Raef had felt how trapped she felt in it. “So,” he asked. “Did they finally get the lock open?”

  [Of course. It was just like you guessed from the poem. It was keyed to a Beast’s voice, to my voice. I cried back to it like the recording of the child’s cry, and the docking portal came right open.]

  “Oh.” He would have liked to have been there, to have walked into that place. He imagined it like a laboratory, with racks of test tubes and embryos floating in vats in some stasis solution and …

  [It wasn’t like that. John and Connie told me all about it. I can pretense it for you, if you like.]

  “No. That’s okay. Thanks anyway. Maybe later.” He still wasn’t used to the idea that she could speak to them, that she and Connie and John were all, well, not friends, not like she and Raef were, maybe, but …

  [Shipmates.]

  “Good word for it. Just tell me about it. What did they find?”

  [About what you expected.] He was suddenly seeing it; his pleasant room had vanished. He entered the lock with John, rode on his shoulder; he must have been using some sort of recording unit. The time capsule was bigger than he expected, more like a space station than anything else. Evangeline walked him swiftly through it, locks, Spartan rooms for whatever crew had stayed here, laboratories and storage areas for specimens. She conveyed to him wordlessly what was here; seeds, spores, bacteria, ova, spe
rm, zygotes, embryos, cryogenically preserved adult specimens of some organisms. Some of the storage units had obviously failed, but others appeared operational still, and the embryos behind the glass floated peacefully.

  “I’d still like to know how they came up with that beacon to attract you.”

  [John suggests that prior to evacuation, Humans had been monitoring space signals for signs of intelligent life. They would have recorded the cries of infants in an egg net without being aware of what they were. At some time, someone must have heard it and made the connection between those cries and the fuller-voiced signals of adult Beastships. A nice piece of deduction on someone’s part.]

  “Yeah. Well, what do John and Connie think of all this? Are they seriously considering raiding the mining stations for recruits?” He grinned at how he’d found that odd bit floating in her mind.

  He felt Evangeline’s shrug. The walls of the space ark faded, were replaced by his room. [It is hard to say. Right now, there is too much data. They will be months trying to understand it all. John was very excited at first, but Connie said she thought they should just leave everything as it was, not just the capsule but the Earth, too. Now Connie has become very excited. It seems there are Human zygotes preserved as well, old style, self-replicating Humans like you. But now John is saying perhaps the wise course would be to let things alone. He wonders if they have any right to tamper with the Earth, if it would not be an old foolishness revisited.]

  “So they’re arguing?” Raef asked worriedly.

  Evangeline considered. [No, not now. They are in Connie’s quarters, mating.] Another long pause. [They seem to find this activity both pleasurable and exciting. Their emotional emanations are quiet strong.]