Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  “It ... inside ... the tubes ... I don’t ...”

  “Modred?”

  “... broken through ...”

  “Modred.”

  “... tried ...”

  And then static overwhelmed the voice.

  “I think,” said Lynette, “that’s a suit com.”

  “Modred,” Dela said, “keep talking.”

  But we got nothing but static back.

  “If he’s still near controls,” Percy said, his voice very thin and strained, “he may be communicating with the other side.”

  I cast an encumbered look toward the line of giants, fearing that coming at our backs. “My lady,” I said, “they’re closer.”

  Others looked as I looked back; and then—”The lock!” Percy exclaimed.

  It was back, our Beast. It filled the doorway, having to deflate some of its bladders to pass the door; and in leathery limbs like an animal’s limbs it had something white clutched against it and buried in its membranes.

  “Modred,” Dela exclaimed in horror.

  He looked dead, crushed and still. And the bladders inflated again, in all their murky shades of blue, taking him from view. But then the limbs unfolded and it squatted and let him to the decking, a sprawl of a white-suited figure out of that dreadful alien shape. It spoke to us, a loud rumbling that vibrated from the deck into our bones; and oh, what it was to be held inside it when it spoke, with the sound shaking brain and marrow. It stood over Modred, partly covering him with its membranes. It quivered and rumbled and wailed and ticked, and Lance came at it, not really an attack, but making it know he would. I moved, and the others did; and the giants were a shadow very close to us, coming at our side.

  Then our Beast retreated, a flowing away from us toward the giants, a nodding, slow withdrawal, and rumbling and ticking all the while. A loping serpent, murky red, came out of the lock and ran along beside it as it went.

  And Modred stirred, alive and making small motions toward getting up. “Oh, help him,” I asked my friends, but I was closest besides Lance, and I bent and went down to one knee as best I could, so that Modred found my other knee and levered himself up. He touched his chest, got his com working, but his head was turned toward the Beast in its slow retreat toward the giants, who had stopped in their advance. I only heard Modred’s breathing, that came in gasps. And somehow the hinder view of the Beast looked more humanlike in shadow, like a slump-shouldered giant shuffling away, its monster serpent looping along beside it like some fawning pet, ignored in its master’s melancholy.

  “It’s the oldest,” Modred said. “The captain of the core object ... first here. Unique.”

  “You called it here,” my lady said, accusing him. “You brought this on, all of it.”

  “No,” Modred said. “It had to come. There were the tubes.”

  Sometimes Modred failed to make sense. And sometimes I feared I understood him after all.

  “They took Griffin,” Dela cried, with a sweep of her hand in the direction of the retreating Beast. “They took him away with them.”

  A lift of Modred’s head. “I think I know where.”

  That struck my lady silent. I looked up, past her, past Lance, where this creature, this shuffling monster passed behind the giant ranks and disappeared. They stayed, beside the giant ram, indistinct in the fog they had made. But they came no nearer.

  “The tubes,” Modred said indistinctly. “They had to get us out of the way ... the Maid’s filled with methane now, where they can carry the fight into the tubes themselves; but we’re to follow the passage to the next sector. That’s where they’ll have taken him, most probably.”

  “Did they tell you that?” My lady’s voice was still and careful, edged and hard. “Do you carry on dialogues, you and that thing?”

  “It was in the map,” Modred said.

  A silence then. My heart hurt, from fear. From—I had no notion what. I was shivering. Maybe Modred was mad. Or maybe we had all lost ourselves in a dream, and we had forgotten what he was.

  “He did the best he knew,” I said for him. “He tried not to be Modred, lady Dela. He really tried. He did.”

  “Down the passage,” Dela said then. “So we hand ourselves over to them?”

  We thought about that.

  “I’ll go,” Lance said quietly. “And come back again if I can.”

  “No,” Dela said. “We’ll all go.—Modred, can you walk?”

  He pressed hard on my knee trying to get up. Gawain helped him, steadying him with an arm; and then Lynette had to help me, because I just hadn’t the strength left to straighten my leg and lift the weight of my suit. She held me on my feet a moment until I had my breath and got my feet braced. What held Percy on his feet—he was not large or so strong as Lance—I had no idea. And Lynette helped Vivien up next.

  “We can’t go through that,” Vivien protested, meaning the giants, who stood like a murky wall in front of us. Her voice shook. I took her hand that still held the spear and pressed her gloved fingers about the shaft, set the butt of it firmly on the decking.

  I said nothing. With Viv that was usually safest. “Come on,” Dela said, and so we went, all of us, with what strength we had.

  XVII

  Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint

  As from beyond the limit of the world,

  Like the last echo born of a great cry,

  Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice

  Around a king returning from his wars.

  There was no suddenness in this encounter. The giants stood, and we—we came as best we could, at the little pace that the least of us could manage. Lance was first of us, strongest, and Vivien trailed last. Breath sounded loud in my ears, mine, my comrades’, while the giants loomed closer still; and over us as we passed by the huge machinery, amid the smoke.

  “Stay together,” Dela said, because for that moment we couldn’t see at all, except the white mist about us, with the glare of lights, and sometimes a shadow that might be one of us or the movement of some creature in ambush there.

  A shape came clear to me, like a pillar in the murk and going up and up; and this was the leg of one of the giants, armored by nature or wearing some kind of suit different than ours. I shied from it and shied the other way at once, about to collide with another. I had lost my comrades. In the helmet I had no sense of direction. I plunged ahead the way that I thought I had been going, blind, among these monstrous shapes.

  And they ignored us as we passed, never stirred, unless those vast heads looked down with slight curiosity and wondered what we were. We passed through the mist and I saw my lady and Lance and Lynette; looked back and I saw Gawain and Modred coming out from the mist; then another that was Vivien, by the size.

  “Percy,” I called.

  “I’m here,” he answered me, hoarse and faint. I saw one more of us clear the mist and follow, and I let Viv pass me, delayed to walk with Percy, not to lose him again.

  “I’ll make it,” he said, but that was only to keep me happy: none of us knew where we were going or how far ... except maybe Modred, who limped along in our midst.

  And ahead of us stretched more and more of the passage, which bent gently rightward, and the way was dim, violet shadowed, once we were past the floods and the mist. “My lady,” Lynette said from up ahead, “we could use the suit lights, but I don’t think we should.”

  “No,” Dela agreed, hard-breathing. “We don’t need more attention than we have.”

  “They don’t care,” Modred said faintly. “They could have stopped us if they had.”

  No one answered. No one had Modred’s confidence. And even his sounded shaken.

  The shadows deepened. The way branched left, toward a vast sealed hatch; and right, toward more passageway. We walked toward that choice, saying nothing, only breathing in one breath, a unison of exhaustion, mine, my lady’s, everyone’s. Lance and Lynette stopped there, stood and looked back until we had come closer.

 
“Bear right,” Modred said, between his breaths, and gestured toward the open passage.

  “Go right,” my lady said after a moment, and herself began to walk again. So we all did, getting our weighted bodies into reluctant motion. I saw Vivien falter; she used her spear like a staff now, to keep herself steady, and leaned on it and kept moving. We walked slower and slower through the murk.

  Until the second door, that closed off the way ahead, another hatch vast as the first, everything on giant scale.

  We caught up to one another, and Lynn turned on a light that she played over the huge machinery of the lock, but I saw no control, no panel, nothing in our reach.

  Lance struck it a blow with his sword, frustration if nothing else.

  And it shot apart, two sideways jaws gaping with a rumble that shook the deck under us, showing murky dark inside, a second steel door. My heart stopped and started again, faltering; my lady called on God; and someone had cried out. Then:

  “Come on,” my lady said, and the first of us went in. Vivien delayed, in front of Percivale and me. “Move, Viv,” I said, and Percivale just took Viv’s arm in his good hand, and I took the other, so we kept up.

  I knew that those doors would close again with us inside. They must. It was a lock. And they did, when we were barely across the threshold, a thunder at our heels, a shock that swayed us on our feet, and a machine-sound after, like pumps working. I flinched, and Viv jerked, but kept her feet.

  Then the inner doors thundered back, and we blinked in brighter light, in light like sunshine, and an impression of green.

  “Oh,” my lady said, very quietly, and I shivered where I stood, because it was a world we faced, a land, an upward-curving horizon hazing into misty distances, with a vast central lake that disappeared in an overhead glare of lighting far above.

  That was not all. Things moved here, from either side of us at once—tall creatures, gangling, clothed, some brown skinned and some azure-blue, some red-furred; and all armed, taking up a defensive line.

  And they had Griffin with them—suitless, unrestrained.

  “Griffin,” my lady cried. And threw down her spear and went to him, trying all the while to rid herself of the helmet.

  He knew her at once. There was none of us so small as she was; he flung his arms about her, and helped her with the helmet then, so we all knew it was safe.

  The crew knew how; it took Gawain’s help for my helmet and Lance’s and Viv’s. We stood there, having let our weapons fall, while my lady and master Griffin were lost in what they had to say to each other. We were drenched in sweat; even Viv was. My legs wanted to shake, the while we stood with our born-men forgetting us and so many strange creatures—a few were beautiful, but most were fierce—looking at us and wondering.

  Dela shed her pack and dropped that with the helmet, and Griffin, who was dressed in clothes he must have gotten here—blue and green, they were, and not at all like ours—Griffin drew her over to a rocky place that thrust up out of the soil amid plants like vines that covered what must be decking under our feet. Among the rocks stranger growth had taken hold in soil heaped up about them. He gave her that mossy place to sit, and sat down himself, holding her gloved hands.

  And Lance—he stood watching this, and finally gathered more courage than any of us, and walked up to them and knelt down there. So we all drifted closer. Griffin bent and hugged Lance against him, a great fierce hug that warmed us all and I think near broke Lance’s heart.

  “It’s all right,” Griffin said, looking worn and with tears running down his face. And to Modred: “You were right.”

  “Yes, sir,” Modred said, in that way of his. “I knew I was.

  We settled there, too tired to do more than that, and listened.

  “I thought I was dead,” Griffin said, “when they brought me through the doors and took the helmet off. But it’s what you see here—I wanted to go back then and bring you here, but I couldn’t make them understand. Or trust me if they did.”

  “They came through the ship,” Dela said. “Modred saw.”

  “I think they went right on going,” Modred said, “into the tubes, after what lives there. What that is, I had no chance to see. But they meant to stop it, and I think they have.”

  “We’re safe,” Griffin said, and took Dela’s hand. “We can rest here. Like the others.”

  A creature came to us—one so pale and delicate it seemed more spirit than substance—and brought a flask of something clear and a bit of what could only be bread. It cheered us immeasurably, the more that it was pure water, clean and cold and food that spoke worlds of likeness between us and these. We were near and sibs to whatever creatures drank water and breathed this air; our skins could touch; our eyes could look at other eyes without a faceplate between. We smiled, we laughed, we cried, even we.

  And then we shed the suits which were our last protection. For Percy, we gave him all the ease we could, binding up his arm, giving him what help we carried in our kits, so that he had relief from pain. And after, one by one, we settled down ourselves to sleep, absolutely undone. Griffin watched over us, his arms about our lady, who slept against him. And creatures watched us strange as any heraldic beasts of our dream, but wise-eyed and armed and patient.

  We thought we should never see the Maid again ... but after what might have been two days, they opened up that great lock and showed us through, suitless themselves, so we knew it was safe.

  And we went where they guided us, to visit our damaged home. They had sealed up the holes in the upper decks. It was all oxygen again.

  But after some few days my lady missed the green wide expanses. So we came back to the huge lock bringing our baggage and whatever we could carry. And they opened for us-—I think expected us, having come that way themselves.

  It was not the last trip. They gave us stone, stones that like the soil were the fragments of wandering asteroids, and we understood, because there were all sorts of shelters if one wandered about the place. It was surely the strangest of human houses that we made, a simple place at first, a room for Griffin and my lady, with huge open windows, because the weather never varied and there was nothing there to fear. We carried the great dining table out when we had made another room, and set the banners there; there was the crystal and the fine plates. We dined together, and learned all manner of things grew here good to eat—of what source we only guessed, that some ships had brought plants in, some for food and some for air and more perhaps exotic things that were only beautiful.

  And we became a wonder, having all kinds of visitors, some horrific and some very shy and beautiful. With some we learned to speak, or to make signs.

  They came in a kind of respect. I think it was the banners, the bright brave colors, the shining crystal and the lovely things my lady Dela brought from the Maid. They took Griffin and my lady for very important, because we did; and because—in some strange fashion they loved the color we had brought.

  So we settled there.

  And lived.

  Time ... is different here. The Captain is very old ... no one knows how old, perhaps not even he. But we don’t age.

  And we fight his war, whenever he has need: Griffin and Lancelot and Gawain and Lynn ... they’ve gotten very wise, and the Captain calls on them when it’s a question of some ship in our sector—because more come. Our voyage is forever, and while the builders round our rim seldom win a ship, they always try. Like with us. They’re methane-breathers; a plague; a determined folk ... oh, very dangerous; but our air would kill them, so it’s only ships they try, ships and sometimes great and terrible battles in methane sectors of the wheel where they can break through. And once there was a great battle, where all of us were called who could go—in our suits, and armed with terrible weapons.

  There might be such again. We know.

  But the time passes, and we gather others, who come whenever Griffin calls.

  And we ... we come, at such time: Modred from his berth on the Maid, where he spends en
dless time in talking with all sorts of living things and devising new ideas; and Vivien keeps him company, making meticulous records and accounts.

  Percivale has a place up in the heights of the curve. We see him least of all; but very old and wise creatures visit him to talk philosophy, and when he comes to visit us his voice is quiet and makes one very warm.

  And Gawain and Lynette—they travel about the land, even into the strange passages that lead elsewhere, so of all of us they have seen most and come with the strangest tales to tell.

  And Lance—

  “I love them both,” he said once and long ago. And so he left the hall where Dela and Griffin lived, first of all to leave.

  And that was the worst pain of any I had ever had.

  “Where’s Lance?” my lady asked that next day; and I was afraid for him. I ran.

  But Griffin found me, all the same, there back of the house, where I thought that I was hidden.

  “Where’s Lance?” he said.

  “He went away,” I said, just that. But Griffin had always had a way of looking through me.

  “Why?”

  “For love,” I said, which was a word so strange for me to be saying I was terrified. But it was so. It was nothing else but that.

  “He shouldn’t be alone,” Griffin said. “Elaine—can you find him?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  And he: “Go where you have to go.”

  So it was not so much trouble to track one of us, when every creature everywhere knew us. And I found Lance sitting on the shore of that huge lake which lies central to our world ... itself a strange place and full of thinking creatures.

  “Elaine,” he said.

  “They sent me,” I said to him. And he made a place for me beside him.

  So we live, Lance and I, in a tower on that shore, a long time in the building, but of time we have no end.

  And from one window we look out on that vast lake; and from the other we look toward our Camelot.

  Whether we dream, still falling forever, or whether the dream has shaped itself about us, we love ... at least we dream we do.