STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds II

by Dean Wesley Smith (Editor)

  She felt an urge to reveal herself on the voyage homeward, a tug of liquid attraction as her cloaked shuttle crept near to the so-called Bajoran wormhole and Deep Space 9. Odo was there; she could feel his presence. But common sense prevailed. The solids of the Alpha Quadrant had no love for the Founders, and she could scarcely blame them for that. And Odo truly was a treacherous holy fool: he would not protect her. He could not, for he was mad with truth.

  At last she arrived home and stood on solid ground for one final moment, on a tiny promontory of rock tipped up out of the oceanic beauty of the Great Link. She dove in with great force, and soon the Others shared her traumatic adventure and the news of their near escape from disaster, merging with her rage and sorrow. Agreement was made to abandon the facilities on Bleak Prime, perhaps to study its strange effects on their genetically engineered servants but no longer to live or mine there. That was a course far too dangerous and unpredictable for their cause.

  The Link grew somber and still as they pondered the final words of the Vulcan. But only the changeling who was once Anchet Mariole heard the gentle voice of Bicek as she told the Others her tale, the acutely singular voice of a solid she could not forget. ...

  “A curious paradox, is it not?”

  If the changeling had a heart, it might burst. Love is a complex process.

  A Ribbon for Rosie

  Ilsa J. Bick

  [GRAND PRIZE]

  Maybe she was an angel. Mama says angels talk to God and help us. But Papa doesn’t believe that. He says angels are make-believe. He says that when people are lonely or scared, they want to believe in something stronger than they are, to prove that there’s a reason bad things happen to nice people.

  So maybe she was make-believe. Maybe she jumped out of my head because I wanted her to. But she said a whole bunch of stuff I didn’t understand. I remember the words, but my brain doesn’t understand, and that’s weird, because if she came out of my make-believe, then I should.

  She came the night Mama had made a Denevan plum pudding. Usually we love Mama’s Denevan plum pudding, except that night Mama was cutting up the pudding real slow, because she was mad. Papa had just told Mama that we might be moving again. He didn’t say we would; he said we might. But that was enough to make Mama mad. See, with Papa, might usually meant would.

  We used to move a lot because of Papa. He’d say that [268] things never got boring. But when you’re always new, it’s hard to make friends. I wouldn’t mind being bored.

  Not that I was the only one who had trouble making friends. Papa had tons more. He always argued with someone. Then he’d tell Mama who said what and what happened next. I never understood what Papa was talking about—junk about time and quantum-phase shifts. Papa had this idea to go faster than warp, which no one believed except him and Mama. Me, I’m not old enough to know what to believe.

  Anyway, Papa said moving was easy because we had each other and that was all we needed. I don’t know about that. Mama cared about other people. Whenever we moved, Mama would call her father, my grandpa. Home base, she said. Home for Mama was on Earth, in a country called Norway. She gets homesick, and she used to talk to Grandpa all the time. That is, she used to before we left Federation space three months ago, and now there’s just nobody.

  So the night Papa told us we might leave Heronius II was the night my Denevan plum pudding didn’t taste so good. Mama didn’t have any at all, so Papa ate his and hers and mine. Mama went to call Grandpa. I heard her crying, and Papa could tell I did. Go outside and play, he said.

  I didn’t argue. See, go outside and play is grown-up code for go away. Grown-ups always tell you to go out and play even when the only things to play with are a couple of bugs you find under a rock. It’s just so you leave. But it’s very hard to play when someone tells you to; it’s not like, go brush your teeth. Grown-ups say silly things all the time—like telling you to go to sleep or be happy, as if you could just because they say so.

  [269] I went. Like just about everywhere else, we lived on the very edge of the colony: close but still far enough away so you’d have to look twice to convince yourself that we’re really part of anything. There was no one around, and it was really late, way past second sunset. I’d grabbed Rosie, who’s my best friend. She’s all I have from Earth, except Mama. Rosie was Mama’s doll, and she brought Rosie with her after she married Papa and decided to move away from Earth for good. Then she gave Rosie to me.

  Outside I scuffed around with Rosie and kicked up black dust clouds. The dirt was black on Heronius, because of all the volcanoes, and that’s because the magnetic fields of the planet kept shifting all the time, which was why we were there in the first place. About a half-kilometer away was Papa’s new ship, and so I headed over there. Heronius had three moons, and when they were all out, it was like a special kind of daylight. Like walking into silver, or maybe heaven. Everything glowed.

  In the glow, Papa’s ship didn’t look like a ship. It looked alive, which I think ships are anyway. Machines can be like people. I don’t mean like an android. I mean that when you live in a house, the house turns into you, or when you pilot a ship, the ship is a thing that knows what it likes and doesn’t like, just like a person. I told Papa that once, and he ruffled my hair and told me that maybe I’d be in Starfleet someday and command a big starship, only over his dead and broken body. I think it was a joke, but you can never be sure with parents.

  I set Rosie down on the rocks near the ship, being very careful not to tear her new dress. Volcanic rocks are sharp. And then I sat down on a flat place next to her and watched [270] the way the three moons made the ship look washed in silver.

  Silly thing was I wished I could be home in bed. Other kids were in bed already. Me, I didn’t have a bedtime. That was Papa’s idea—not to regiment me, he told Mama. And I think that was the reason Papa stopped working with the Federation.

  Anyway, about her—want to hear what I saw the first time? The way she came from around Papa’s ship, it was like she kind of peeled herself away, as if she and the ship had been the same thing. She was very tall and thin and wore a silvery uniform, as if she had fallen out of space, like a meteor or an angel, and on the way the stars had gotten wrapped around her. She shimmered.

  She didn’t see me right away. I was so surprised I don’t think I breathed or anything but just watched. When she turned a little bit, I could see that she was wearing a combadge—you know the type they have on starships to talk to each other. Our ships have been so small, you just yell if you want something.

  There were other things, stranger even than the way she was just there. She was metal. I mean, at first I thought it was decoration, like jewelry. Her jewelry wasn’t alive or morphic or even glittery, and when I finally got to see it better, I figured that probably jewelry wasn’t the right word. More like circuitry. Remember how I said it looked like she was part of the ship? So it was like she had walked out of a machine and had pieces still sticking to her. Or maybe she couldn’t decide yet whether she’d be human or machine. There was circuitry over her left eye and a weird metal star on the other side of her face, right at her jaw. And she wore a glove on her left [271] hand, only padded at the tips and lacy, the way a spider’s web looks when there’s dew on it. Yet everything was exactly where it ought to be, as if all the metal and silver and circuitry were so much a part of her and what she was, she wouldn’t be her without them.

  I wasn’t scared. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen, just as beautiful as Mama is, maybe more. That’s beautiful; Papa says that there’s no one in the universe as pretty as Mama is, and he’s right.

  And then there were her eyes. They were very blue. They glittered. Her eyes were where all her feelings were; in her eyes was everything, and you could tell that everything she was feeling wasn’t about me, because she hadn’t even seen me. She was looking at our ship. She stood there, and then she touched it, the way you would a butterfly. When you touch a butterfly, you have to be carefu
l, or you’ll kill it, because beautiful things are delicate.

  That’s the way she touched Papa’s ship: gentle and afraid, as if she was worried that the ship would just melt or go away. She put one, then two hands on the ship and stroked it, the way I do Rosie’s hair. Then she shivered, like she was cold.

  Everything was really quiet, as if Heronius was holding its breath, and she and Papa’s ship were all silver in the light of the stars and the moons.

  Hello, I said.

  She jumped and turned real fast. Because I was in the rocks, I don’t think she saw me at first, and I didn’t want to make her so scared she would go away. So I stood up. That way she could see I was little, and she wouldn’t be worried.

  She came away from the ship and looked down at me. [272] She didn’t look angry, the way some grown-ups do when you catch them doing something they don’t want you to see.

  I was unaware of you, she said. Have you been there long?

  The way she talked was weird. At first I thought maybe she was an android. I’d only met one android in my entire life, and his face was flat, like a pond when there’s no wind. She wasn’t as bad, but she said things without lots of feeling, like a computer. You know how computers are: kind of like excuse me, but the hull is going to breach and you’re all going to die, and I just thought that you’d like to know and maybe do something about it.

  Longer than you, I said. I mean, I wasn’t rude or anything, but I didn’t know how I felt about her being so close to our ship and all.

  She didn’t answer right away but kept staring. I felt real small, so I grabbed Rosie, and that made me feel a little better.

  What are you doing around our ship? I asked.

  Yours?

  I hugged Rosie tighter. My papa’s. So it’s mine, too. Kind of.

  She looked at me, and she looked at Rosie, and then she shivered again. Are you cold? I asked.

  She said no, but her voice was really tiny, almost scared-sounding.

  Are you an android? (How dumb. I knew it wasn’t true. It was just something to say.)

  She looked about as surprised as I guess she could, which wasn’t very. Her eyebrows—well, eyebrow and circuit—[273] came together in a little pucker. An android? No. Why do you ask?

  I stared down at my sneakers all covered with black Heronian dust. I hate when I have to explain things, but I’d opened my big mouth. Well, uhm ... it’s the way you talk, I said.

  The way I speak.

  Yeah. Like no contractions. And you talk fancy. Only androids and Vulcans do that. Except you’re not Vulcan, and you don’t look like any android I’ve ever seen, because their eyes aren’t usually any color but yellow or black, and their skin is kind of, you know, creepy white. Mama says that’s because they don’t have blood like humans do, and blood is red and is what makes our skin have color, and red’s my favorite color. Maybe you’re a new model, but then they ought to finish your polydermal layer. Your circuitry’s showing.

  Her hand—the one with the lacy glove—went up to her left circuit, the one where her eyebrow would have been. No, I am ... complete. These are bioimplants.

  Oh, I said. Whatever they were, I thought. Like artificial? I asked. To help you see?

  Not quite. Artificial, that is. They are integral to who I am.

  See, you did it again.

  What?

  Said integral, instead of I am who I am.

  Clearly we are having a communications problem, she said, like I had a bad isolinear chip or something.

  How come you talk like that?

  Speech is cumbersome, and language is imprecise.

  [274] Aren’t you used to talking?

  Not until recently.

  Oh. Are you from a ship?

  How have you drawn that conclusion?

  I told her—the combadge and all. So, did you come this afternoon? The colony comm didn’t say anything about a ship, I said.

  My ship did not land.

  You came in a shuttlecraft?

  No.

  This was like playing a guessing game, only it wasn’t much fun. You transported? I asked. I get sick when I transport. Do you get sick when you transport?

  No. But I did transport, in a manner of speaking.

  And then she got that look on her face that most grownups get when they’re not going to say anything more. She changed the subject. Grown-ups do that all the time. Your vessel, she said, does it have a name?

  Just a number.

  Three-two-four-five-zero, she said in that computer voice again, only that wasn’t like she was so smart or anything. The registry number was next to the hatch. It wasn’t like I could say wow, great guess, so I didn’t say anything.

  She opened her mouth to say something else but didn’t. Instead she pointed at Rosie, and that’s when I saw she had some circuitry on the back of her right hand, too. It matched the star on her jaw.

  What is that?

  Huh? I was so busy looking at the stuff on her hand I was sort of surprised. It’s a doll, I said.

  Doll. She said it like she’d never heard of one.

  [275] Maybe she couldn’t hear very well. So I said louder, A doll. You know, a toy, only Rosie’s not really a toy, she was my mama’s, and she’s from Norway. That is, Mama’s from Norway, and so’s Rosie, and Norway’s on Earth, and—I stopped because it was all sounding pretty complicated, even to me, and I’m used to the way I think.

  Before I knew it, she was touching Rosie’s hair with her left hand, the one with the lacy glove.

  Hey, I almost said. I wanted to jerk Rosie away, but I couldn’t. It was the strangest thing: like Rosie belonged to her, too, and it wouldn’t be right to just yank her away.

  Instead I asked, Would you like to hold Rosie for real?

  You’d have thought I was asking her to touch a Verillian pit viper. You know how scary things can be wow-neat and wow-creepy at the same time? That’s the way Rosie seemed for her—as if she just had to hold her but figured she might die or something. Her eyes were real wide, and she looked like she was holding her breath. And maybe it was because of all the moonlight, but she looked like she might cry.

  Then I felt really bad. Rosie makes me feel good. At least, I don’t feel lonely. Sometimes, at night, Rosie helps a lot. The dark can be very scary. Parents tell you there aren’t any monsters or boogeymen, but I’m not sure. So I snuggle under my covers with Rosie and suck my thumb and get all quiet-feeling, and it’s very nice. It’s like being little again—so little that Mama can hold you, and there’s room left over.

  My eyes felt all tingly. Please don’t cry, I said. Here, and I pushed Rosie into her hands.

  Thank you, she said, and her voice was all choked-sounding, like when I have a cold. She was blinking real fast. I watched her fingers, the ones with the glove on them, stroke [276] Rosie’s hair. Rosie’s hair splashed like a stream of silver water over her fingers.

  She is beautiful, she said.

  Not as pretty as you, I said all in a rush, which, even though it was true, I wished I hadn’t said. I am so dumb.

  But all she said was thank you, and she kept playing with Rosie’s hair.

  She likes it if you sing, I said.

  Sing?

  Yes, like a lullaby.

  Does Rosie know one? She wasn’t making fun; she was just asking.

  Yeah. Actually, it’s my favorite.

  So I sang what Mama used to sing whenever I had a bad dream. She listened, and after a little bit, she rocked Rosie back and forth, but so slow I could tell she wasn’t really thinking about it. And her eyes got a faraway-memory look. Papa gets that look, when he looks at the stars. I can talk to him, but that doesn’t mean he hears. He usually doesn’t, and even if I can get him to look at me, he’s not really there.

  I kept singing, and soon she was humming, real soft. It’s an easy song, and it was nice not to sing alone. When I’d done, she kept on a bit, until she heard herself. Then she stopped and blinked. She looked at me all queer.
Then she handed Rosie back but gentle, like Rosie might break or something.

  That was very beautiful, she said.

  Didn’t your mama ever sing to you?

  She twisted her head away and looked back toward the ship. I do not remember.

  You mean, you don’t remember if she sang to you?

  [277] No, and then she looked right at me. I do not remember my mother.

  Why not?

  We were separated when I was young.

  What about your papa?

  He was ... lost.

  You mean you’re an orphan?

  Yes.

  Wow. I always thought orphans were supposed to be little kids, not grown-ups. Sure, people get old and die, but somehow you don’t figure that your mama and papa, even if their mama and papa are dead, can ever be orphans. After all, they have you, and they have each other. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to have my parents around.

  I think she could tell I felt bad. She said, It is all right. It was a long time ago.

  That made me feel better, a little. Were you adopted? I asked.

  By a very large family.

  Oh. It was all I could think to say. Do you miss them?

  At times.

  Do you ever talk to them?

  Talk?

  Yeah. On subspace. I call Grandpa all the time. He’s on Earth.

  No, I do not speak to them.

  What about letters?

  No.

  But won’t they worry?

  I was one of many. I suspect I think of them more than they will ever think of me.

  [278] What kind of family was that? I wanted to ask more, but just then I heard Papa call my name. Heck. It was late. Already the first moon had set, and it had gotten darker. In the sky the third moon, the one shaped like a lima bean (I hate lima beans), was catching up to the second.