Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  Rafe shook his head. The words writhed past, heard, half-heard. He hung there in the spider arms, looked at the machines, the mocking image of himself. “One large memory,” he said past unresponsive lips, “one hell of a large memory, that thing. Wouldn’t it be?”

  “Oh yes, quite large.”

  “Runs all the time.”

  Kepta lifted his head in a curious way, his own mannerism thrown back at him, half-mocking, half-wary.

  “I threaten you,” Rafe said, and found it funny, hanging there, naked, in the steel, unyielding hands. “Do I? Suppose I believe that’s how you do it, suppose I believe it all—There’s still the why of it. You want to tell me why? And you still want to tell me you’re putting me out of here?”

  “Why’s not relevant. Say that I wanted the template. That’s all. When I call it up and it talks to me, it won’t know a thing of what we’ve said; won’t know what it is. It’ll be the you that walked in here of his own free will. That’s the one I’ll deal with. Why tell you anything? The template won’t remember. You’d have to tell it what you’ve learned. And you’ll be safe away from it.”

  “Why?” he asked again. “Why let me go?”

  “I said. It’s easy.—You’re worried, aren’t you? You’re worried about your life, theirs—the whole species. That’s why you don’t really think I’ll turn you out. You think of ships. Military. I understand this concept of yours, this collective of self defense. You think I’ve come to learn all I can; that I’m in advance of others who’ll come to harm all your kind. No. I’m unique.”

  “Then come in. Come into some human Port and talk like you’re civilized.”

  The mirror-image blinked. “You don’t really want that.”

  “No,” he said, thinking again, thinking at once of Endeavor, magnified a hundred-fold, O God, some major port—

  “There’ll just be yourself returning,” it said. “The military will check records, put you together with the Endeavor business. You’ll be answering a lot of questions. That’s all right. Tell them anything you like. I’ll be long gone from Paradise.”

  “Where? To do what?”

  “You’re worrying again.”

  “Are you afraid? Afraid of us?”

  “Responsibility. You have this tendency—to make yourself the center, the focus. Jillan and Paul—you’re responsible for them; if your species died, you’d be more responsible than I who killed them. An interesting concept, responsibility—and within your context, yes, you could become that focus. I could wipe out your kind, based on what you know. And on what you don’t. You couldn’t fight me. Your ships can’t catch me; my weapons are beyond you; there’s just no chance, if I were interested. I’m not. So you’re not the center, are you? That’s a great loss to you ... that your kind will live on without your responsibility. Could it even be—that you’re not responsible for other things? Or that your friends are not in your universe at all?”

  “What becomes of them?”

  “They’re not your responsibility.”

  He flung himself to his feet. The arms prevented that.

  “You’re not necessary. You go to Paradise. You tell them what you like. Tell them everything you’ve seen. They’ll be interested. Of course they will. You’ll be famous of your kind—in certain ways. Very important. You’ll certainly be the focus then. Won’t you?”

  Imagination filled it in—official disclaimers, the military swarming over him and his capsule like bees—Hallucination, they’d say, for general consumption.... “Damn you,” he said to Kepta, shivering.

  “Not my responsibility,” Kepta said. “Not at all. I’ll be gone. Nothing to fear from me; there never was. But you don’t want to believe that. It takes something away from you.” The spider-arms relaxed, the grip yielded. “Your clothes are there. I think you might be cold.

  He moved, on his own, crawled off the sweating, plastic surface. Everywhere about him was the stench of his own fear. He tucked his clothing to him and held onto it. “I stink,” he muttered at it. “I want a bath. I’m going back to Lindy, thanks.”

  Kepta would stop him, he thought; would move the arms again. But they all retracted with one massive snick of metal, clearing him a path.

  “A machine could carry you,” Kepta said.

  “I’ll walk.”

  It hurt. Every movement hurt, however slow. Every thought did, in this trap that he was in. He limped toward the exit from this place, the way he had come in. He cherished the pain, that it filled his mind like needful ballast, filled cracks and crevices and darknesses and took away the need to think. Tears ran down his face, and he could not have said whether they were true tears or only a welling up of too much fluid; he was beyond all analyses.

  <> destroyed the Rafe-simulacrum that <> wore and expanded past its limits with relief. <> had already absorbed everything that surfaced in Rafe-mind, all the suppositions, all the facts, all the emotive feeling. <> felt a lingering distress.

  There was a time of adjustment afterward, there must be, in which <>’s human experiences and <>’s own flowed past each other in comparison, and <> kept them all. <> was interested for various reasons, but one reason assumed priority, that <> was due for challenge—indeed, had, to a great extent provoked it, seeing opportunity.

  More, there was additional use in Rafe-mind for had worn it. Ancient and unbending as was, had slipped into it, and this was worth interest. It was always well, under any circumstances, to know just what was about.

  And if had found some congruency to self in Rafe-mind, then <> was interested.

  “Is it pleasant?” <> taunted across the width of the ship.

  had no answer, had taken a shape much more like ’s own configurations, and the Paul-mind nested in it.

  <> was thunderstruck.

  “See,” said <^> in an undertone of distress as <^> came slipping up to <>’s presence. “See, <^> said as much. So did ((())). Even ((())).”

  “Quiet,” said <>, losing all amusement, and having searched the tag ends of Rafe-mind to account for the disaster, decided finally that Paul Gaines was, in this simulacrum, more than slightly warped.

  Paul-mind, Rafe-mind informed <>, was stationer, and that meant a wealth of things. It meant a life style; it meant groups; and security, and comfort if one could get the value-items to exchange for it—which was one motivation for human ships moving constantly in transfer of materials from collection to consumption (but not the sole motive of those who ran those ships). This thread led to comprehensions. Paul-mind was not like Rafe. Paul Gaines wanted to be contained in something, in anything. Space frightened him; strangeness did; but what provided him comfort was never strange to Paul.

  And there Paul sat, in ’s heart, nested, protected and surviving.

  <> was, to admit it, utterly chagrined.

  Paul has other qualities, the Rafe-memories said. Rafe-mind called it bravery, and attached whole complexes of valuations to that word. Not group-survival over individual, though that was part of it. Not retaliation simply, though it might manifest in that; or equally well, by its negative. Not self-aggrandizement, either, though it could be that; or equally well self-denial. The term attached to valuations of person—the affirmation of some ideal species-type, <> judged.

  Rafe-mind was not sure it itself possessed this quality; but it desired it. To evidence that it did possess it, Rafe tried not to be disturbed.

  For that reason Rafe had walked the corridor to the lab, while paradoxically the remnant of Rafe-mind <> still retained, recognized this act for what it was, that Rafe might comply and intend at the same time to make violent resistance, the moment Rafe had the chance.

  Rafe-mind called this second concept dignity.

  <> thought of it as self-preservation, but remembered it was, perhaps, strategy, as well, that Rafe did this thing for all the group he perceived as his.

  Responsibility.

  And what group does Paul belong to? <> wondered, hav
ing information about the words Old Man, and ship, and an arrangement <> found disturbingly accusatory.

  <> was Old Man too; <> had such a group. They were the passengers. Responsibility, Rafe would say again. <> felt no such thing. But to be the focus of loyalty, that appealed to <>.

  would appropriate this Paul Gaines. There was no likelihood that would not, having no such thing as loyalty self.

  Easier, <> thought, if Paul had met some segment of = = = =. Desire for containment, indeed. The Cannibal could have provided that, had <> not intervened.

  “Mad,” said <^>, nesting close to <>, which <> sometimes permitted. “Pity him, <>.”

  “Paul would find <^> quite disturbing,” <> said. “So would all of them.”

  “<^> know that,” <^> said. And, extraneously, as <^> often spoke: “<^> know bravery.”

  <^> had a certain skill, to dip into <>’s mind without leaving anything behind, not a unique talent, by any means. It was <>’s nature, and the ship’s. “It is not—” <> said, and named a concept in <^>’s terms.

  “It feels like that,” <^> said. “<^> would have walked down that hall.”

  “Of course <^> would,” <> said, unsurprised. “For somewhat skewed reasons. It is not—” and <> named that word again, which neither Rafe-mind nor Jillan-mind (which <> also had) possessed the biological reflexes to understand.

  “Go,” <> said to <^>, “and tell that need not skulk about. It’s merely ’s paranoid suppositions that <> would interfere.”

  “ supposes that <> can’t,” <^> said. “ said to tell <> so.”

  <> sent a pulse through the ship, violent enough to touch any sense. “So much for can’t,” <> said, and went off to keep a thing for which the Rafe-mind had no complete word, but promise was close enough.

  Rafe Two sat, tucked up against the dark, invisible wall; and Jillan and Paul kept to their side of the containment. They stared at one another. That was all that was left to do, in the limbo they were in.

  “I have to explain,” Rafe had said, taking that position from some time ago, “what happened to me.” He spoke quite calmly, quite rationally, thinking of his back against an interface that something might pierce very unexpectedly; his face toward—“I’m not sure what you are,” he had said to them. “That Paul that came up to us, that’s not the only double that exists. There was you too—Jillan. It got me. Strong, really strong. It took me to that place, that—” He did not like to remember it. “I don’t know what it did; it hurt. Like the first time. Maybe it did some adjustment. Maybe—maybe it did something else.” Suppositions about that had tormented him thus far; he did not fully trust himself. “I’m telling all of it, you see. I just don’t know what it did to me. But it used you to get at me. Now I don’t know what I’m locked up with. Just let’s keep to our own sides of this place awhile.”

  There had been pain on Jillan’s face. That was the worst.

  “Well,” she had said in a quiet tone, “I can pretty well guess it’s you. That’s something. And I can tell you it’s me, but I guess you won’t believe that.”

  “I’m not one of them,” Paul had said next, and shifted uncomfortably, arms about his knees, while both of them looked at him. “I can swear to you I’m not. There was—there was, remember, this bar on Fargone where we used to meet. The man there had this bird, remember, this live bird—”

  “Named Mickey,” Jillan said.

  “Lived on frozen fruit,” Rafe had said himself, remembering the creature, the curiosity, the small reminder there were worlds, that Earth was real somewhere.

  —Their captors would be interested in that; homeworld; center of origin. A chill went up Rafe’s unprotected back.

  “There’s one double of you,” he had said to Paul. “Maybe more of us. But just stay there. On your side. Please.”

  “He was a pretty thing,” Jillan said at last, “that bird.”

  “He bit,” Paul said.

  “Don’t blame him,” Jillan said. “I’d bite too, being stared at.” She hunched her shoulders, looked around, dropped the subject altogether.

  “Wish I had a beer,” Rafe said.

  “Downer wine,” said Paul. “You know I bet it got that last bottle.”

  “Couldn’t have come through that spin.”

  “Bet it did. Bet Rafe’s got it. They gave him everything.”

  “Can’t share with him,” Rafe said, playing the small game, talk-talk, anything to fill the silence; but he mourned the wine he could never touch.

  Paul frowned, who had never seen what they described to him, the place where they walked through furniture and walls or his living self’s offered hands.

  And Paul’s disbelief comforted him, one small confirmation that seemed least likely to be contrived.

  But maybe it’s smart enough to do that, Rafe thought, growing paranoid. Maybe it’s got all the twitches down.

  He did not know the alien’s limits, that was all. He stared at his sister and his friend and could not believe in either of them.

  And abruptly they were gone.

  He leapt up.

  In light, in a tunneled hall of nodes and gossamer-on carpet.

  His living self lay there on the floor, in a nest of blankets and disordered clothes.

  “Rafe,” he said.

  There was no response. The living body looked sorrowfully small, tight-curled among the blankets. He walked over and squatted down, immune to heat and cold himself, put out a hand—living habits were hard to break—to the sleeper’s shoulder. “Rafe,” he said, with great tenderness, because somehow, some-when, and not because they were identical, he had come to love his other self, to think of him as brother, and to have a little pride in himself—without modesty—because of this steady, loyal man. “Rafe, wake up. Come on. Come out of it.”

  The sleeper moved and groaned in pain.

  It was a doppelganger—one of them at least. Rafe stared at it leaning above him with the light shining through its body, then struggled to sit up and heave his naked back against the wall.

  “What do you want?” he said, in what of a voice the hoarseness left.

  “You’re hurt. It hurt you.”

  “Some.” Rafe shut his eyes. The light wanted to fuzz. He opened them again, discontent, for the ceiling light interfered and blurred out part of the doppelganger’s form. They were only holograms, the alien had said. And other things he clamped his jaws upon.

  The manner was not Kepta, he thought. Or it was Kepta playing still more bitter jokes, with that anguished, frightened look.

  “I’m all right,” he said to it, to him. “Just a little sore.”

  “What in God’s name did it want? What did it do to you?”

  “Just a look-over. A workout. I don’t know. It hurt. That was incidental, I think it was. How are you?”

  The doppelganger laughed, not a pleasant, happy laugh, but one of irony, all the answer it gave him.

  “How’s Jillan and Paul?” he asked it then. “Paul still not speaking to me?”

  A shadow touched the eyes. “Paul’s better now.”

  Better now. He drew an uneasy breath. Which one are you? “I really wish,” he said, “you’d back off a bit. The light is in my eyes.”

  The doppelganger reached; he flinched, twitched back. “You’re scared,” it said. “Scared of me.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Me. Rafe. It’s used my shape with you. Has it?”

  “Yes. It has. Our shape, friend. You know about that?”

  “What did it do?”

  “Its name is Kepta. He or she. I don’t know.” Rafe’s voice cracked. “Maybe you could say.”

  The doppelganger shook its head solemnly, its eyes locked on his own. “It got me too. It used Jillan’s shape. I’ve seen something using Paul’s. And it hurt.”

  “It copied you.” It made sense then, in a tangled skein of threads. “That was copy-making, friend. Now it’s got three versions of me and you. Four, coun
ting the original.”

  “Me; the one it made from me; you—”

  “It got me,” Rafe said. “That’s how I know. Mine’s four. I saw the machines—” The voice cracked again. His joints felt racked. “Plays havoc with the nerves. Goes all through your body. Copies everything.”

  “Why? For God’s sake, what’s it doing with us?”

  “It wants different versions. You’ve grown.” He thought now he knew which one it was; there was no way to be sure, only to guess. He guessed. “You’re not me, not the way you were; I’m not that me either. It just took a new impression. That’s all. It’s going to let me go, it says.”

  “Let you go. Where?”

  “Says Paradise.”

  “How’d it know that? How much does it know?”

  “Like names and places?” He stared into the doppelganger’s face, and thoughts came to him, knowing this self, its need to know—

  —its own condition. To know what it was. The doppelganger had no idea, he suspected; no idea at all what he really was, or where.

  “It’s got access to everything,” Rafe told it carefully. “It has my mannerisms; yours; my turns of speech; everything I know. Like names. It wants to know a star the way we name it. It’s got a map in my head; it just overlays that on the charts it knows. So it knows Paradise, Fargone, knows everything—”

  “Mickey.”

  “What Mickey?”

  “The bird in that Fargone bar.”

  “I guess it does. I’d forgotten. I guess it could remember. Probably has better recall than I do.”

  “Jillan remembers it, really well.”

  “Meaning it’s got us all.”

  “I don’t know,” the doppelganger said, hugging himself round the knees. “I don’t know. What’s it up to? You figure that?”

  “It says it doesn’t matter. Kepta. Kepta’s what it calls itself. It says—” His voice gave way again. “—says it’s got no military aims. That it could take our species out. The whole human race. Says it’s not interested.”

  The doppelganger stared at him.

  “I think,” Rafe said, “maybe it could, near enough as wouldn’t matter. Its tech is—way ahead. Got circuits, memory storage, stuff I can get around; it’s mechanical, like that. But the power it throws around, the way its computers work—” He shut his eyes while he swallowed; it hurt. “I don’t know comp’s insides; you know that; we just run the things. But this ship’s got tricks we don’t. That’s a fact. Doesn’t even hurt to say. It runs through our heads all it likes, digs up everything it wants. Think of trying to defend our space from one of us who’d just inherited this whole ship and aimed it at humankind. If we wanted to—we could be real trouble, given what this has. And it is trouble. Knows every target. Every ship.” He blinked. Tears spilled, a wetness at outer edge of his right eye. “Amazing what’s not classified. Can’t be, can it? Where worlds and stations are—any human knows the star names, and God help us, we know the charts. Any human knows how to run machines; so it knows what we’ve got. And what we don’t have. That too.”