Alternate Realities

by C. J. Cherryh

  It faded out, in black.

  Dead? he wondered. He wiped at nonexistent sweat, at a blurring in his eyes. His heart was still going fit to burst.

  Fear killed it. Mine.

  It came back again, materialized sitting crosslegged in front of him.

  “I had to make a new one,” Kepta said. “You see what I mean.”

  “It just broke apart.”

  “It wasn’t a small stress I put on it. Can we keep off that subject? I’d rather think of where you came from for the moment. Fargone. Please—don’t panic.—Paul, do something.”

  “What?”

  “Anything.”

  “Like get the hell out of here?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Where’s the rest of us? What is this place?”

  “A ship.” The mirror-image looked more relaxed “That’s where you are, you understand. I think Rafe and Jillan have told you some things. I want you to keep one fact very much in mind, keep thinking on it constantly, even at the worst.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Love. They love you, Paul, no matter how dangerous you are. Never lose that thought.”

  “Huh,” he said, shook his head in embarrassment. “Murderer gone maudlin. You killed me, damn you; killed Jillan—”

  “It’s true; don’t doubt that they love you, don’t doubt it for a moment. It’s very important. It’s the most important thing, isn’t it? It’s your whole universe.”

  He felt heat in his face, utter shame.

  “I know,” it said with his mouth, looking steadily out of his eyes at him, with his squarish, stubborn face. “I’m absolutely sure what you’re doing here. Love describes it, why you came, why you worked all those years with them at things that frighten you. To avoid Fargone mines. That was one reason: being afraid of the deep and dark, where your mother died—shot in riot. Riot. That leads places—”

  “Shut up.”

  “But most of all—you want company. You want to give and get love. You think there’s something inherently wrong in that. It’s not a rational transaction. And you value rationality; your species does, yes, I know—while you, you operate from the gut; that’s the word, isn’t it? From the gut. You find this embarrassing?”

  “Maybe,” he said, because it was, because saying anything else was too complicated and even worse. He looked off into the dark, to evade its eyes and had to look back again.

  “You rate Rafe and Jillan,” it said, “higher than yourself. Braver, you would say, because their actions come more often from rationality. Rafe-mind thinks that’s nonsense, but never mind—you rate them smarter too. That’s difficult for me to judge, even having used all three of you. You’ve taken Rafe for your senior, though the age difference is small. It’s not the real reason you have him for superior, though it’s the one you prefer to use. You acknowledge the same superiority in Jillan, who’s your age, and you’ve partitioned off a small resentment for this, much stronger toward Jillan, who evokes strongest feelings in you. Your gender is physically the stronger. Your emotional faculty equates strength of all kinds with fitness to mate. But many individuals are stronger and better of your species; you really rely on opportunity—a contradiction at the root of many insecurities.”

  “Every man has that.”

  “To Rafe—it’s ship. In him, your kind of thinking is very short range: he’d only think that way on the docks. In specific. Not constantly measuring himself. He knows what would make, him fit to mate with fit mates—A ship. He’s lost that now, and that hurt him; but he’s too busy yet to think of that. He has other priorities. He knows his measure. He’s got the universe to save ... in his own self. And that comes first. While Jillan—”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “Why? Why leave her out? That’s an important question. Isn’t it?”

  “Just don’t.”

  “Don’t consider her? She’d resent that, you know. Do you understand, she thinks like Rafe—about the ship. With it, she was merchanter. Free to take whatever mates she fancied. The one freedom she would have—outside the children. Outside child-bearing. She was happy in that prospect. She looked forward to it. But ship drives her, the way it drives Rafe. She went to you—your money, your attachment—your friendship—”

  “Stop it, dammit.”

  “—for Rafe’s sake. For hers. Responsibility. It drives her in a different way, to do unpleasant things. She feels quite powerless in the most important regards. This marriage—this permanency—took away the one reward she had reserved for herself. That too she did. For the ship.”

  “O God.”

  “You resent her every competency. And Rafe’s.”

  “No.”

  “At heart, you suspect your validity. You resented the thought of the Murray name on all your offspring; you gave in on that. You gave up your money to them. You rely on them for smallest decisions; and you need them—emotionally. You have no remote goals like theirs. Yours is very simple: to validate yourself—continually. And to do this, you attached to those who had no weakness in your eyes. You wanted a larger thing to belong to. In them, you found it. You have to understand that about yourself. You do have to belong.”

  “I know,” he said. There was nothing else to say to that, nothing at all.

  “You’ve always doubted your importance. Your grandmother was born in a lab and had a number tattooed on her hand. You rarely saw your mother. She supported you by mine work. You’re not sure whether that was love or duty. She never said. She died and left you a station share, which gave you the ability to live in some comfort. But your species needs attachments of stronger sort. Rafe was one. And Jillan. They were your shelter in youth. They ran wild on the docks. You envied them—not their freedom, but their unity. And they made you a part of them. Adult needs grew into that. For you—there were no other possibilities.”

  “Why don’t we try for that copy you need?”

  “No. Go on thinking on that point. It’s a crucial one for you. There’s ambiguity there. You went into a very dangerous situation; mining, which you hate; in a very unsafe ship; left all your comforts; exchanged all values you had for this one return, that you give and get love from both of them. That seems an important point. Doesn’t it?”

  He drew a deep breath, feeling naked in more ways than physically. “Yes,” he said.

  “Vulnerability is upsetting to you.”

  “To anyone.”

  “Upset is itself a vulnerability.”

  “Is there some point to this?”

  “Oh, yes. There is. I fell victim to that aspect of you myself. Your simulacra were all painful to me. And I avoided that upset. I drew an unwarranted conclusion, that you would not adapt. Rafe did warn me. Your survival should have warned me. Your runaway copy evaded every danger but one. That’s quite a defense you have.”

  “Sure.”

  “There is aggression in you. There is—what you would call that dark side; secrets you keep partitioned. So you understand a little of what I do when I occupy a mind. I partition off those parts of me that would be incompatible. But you don’t have as fine a control on that partitioning; Jillan uses hers; Rafe operates in simplicity: his secrets are all little ones, excepting one. Excepting one. But you—You deliberately disorganize yourself, destroying connections—like now, like this mind’s trying to do, and I won’t press it. Remember that one thing. Remember what I told you was important to remember. That’s how the first Paul Gaines went wrong.”

  “What—went wrong?”

  “Mad. From your viewpoint, he’s quite mad. Pull out everything you hold behind those barriers and you’ll know in what respect. I know you, Paul. There’s no aspect of this mind I haven’t been through, nothing I haven’t handled. I’ve killed several of you doing it, at some cost to me.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to deal with Paul One. It’s very likely that you’re the only one that can both reach and affect him.”

 
“You can’t?” Wit started working again, and seized on that hint of limitation. Learn something—bring it back to them—

  —prove myself—The truth of it jarred.

  “I’ll be—otherwise occupied. I know that I will be. And if you break down, Paul—if you do break down, it’s very likely I’ll have to wipe the templates out. That’s death. For Rafe, and you, and Jillan. Real death, not a power-down. There are several worse things that could happen. Remote, but possible.”

  “What’s that?”

  “One, that you’d become his. The other Paul’s. That he’d have all of you, and the templates, to do with as he pleases. That could happen—if I should go under. And it’s possible I could. It’s always possible. Believe me, destroying the templates against that event—would be charity.”

  He clenched hands that felt cold in the absence of all cold, swallowed against a knot that was not there. “And if you’re lying, all the way—what then, Kepta?

  “You might take the chance and assume that I’m lying. But you’ve seen that first version of yourself. Did you like it? Did it look healthy?”

  “No,” he said. “No.”

  “Do you want to fight this thing? Or had you rather go now? Which will you choose? To get back, to go to sleep? I can arrange that. Or I can tell you what you have to do, to avoid catastrophe.”

  “What’s that?” he asked. It did not seem himself asking, as if he watched from some great distance where he had gone for safety. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Understand it. Understand what that first version, what every version of you has behind every partition of its mind. Understand yourself. If there’s one weakness it will find it; if there’s one doubt, it’s going to discover it. Think of those partitioned things. Think through all your mind until it has no seams, no joining-places, no contradictions at all. Did you know you enjoy giving pain? That you fear the dark? Do you know that Rafe uses you, even while he loves you? That you want Jillan to be less than she is? That you want to be feared?”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Not a lie. It’s the obverse, the wellspring of all the strengths you have. You come from a place, from Fargone; I remember. Hundreds of thousands of your kind are crowded together there. You exist in stress and refrain from every hostile thought and violence. You partition off these things. You live by active denial of them. That other Paul, that you ran—has no partitions. The moment you meet him—neither will you.”

  He stared into eyes the like of his, feeling ice lodged in his gut.

  “Let’s talk about sex, Paul.”

  “What about it?”

  “Defensive,” Kepta said. “You wish most of all you had clothes. That really bothers you.”

  “I haven’t got the urge. Haven’t. Won’t.” He felt a sweat break out that could not possibly exist. “I don’t think I’m likely to.”

  “Rafe feels these reactions, but generalized and rarely in this place. Worry—fear—kinship—these suppress the drive.”

  “So does dying.”

  “Does it?” Kepta asked.

  He stared at Kepta, recalling what it knew, what it remembered.

  “The clothes,” Kepta said, “the clothes. An inconvenience in the templates, but a very important protection to you. Jillan’s bothered least. Rafe—inconvenienced. You’re terrified. Aren’t you, Paul?”

  He said nothing, only looked it in the eyes.

  “Physiology betrays you,” Kepta said. “This body can react—in many ways. It will. You fear it will ... and Rafe—has stopped being ... brother ...”

  “Damn you.”

  “... become—rival, in this dark aspect. In several senses. So has she.”

  “They’re better,” he said at last, between the two of them. “They’re better than I am. Aren’t they?”

  “I can’t judge.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “I won’t be there. You will. In this—it’s not better, Paul. It’s what survives.”

  “It can’t all rest on me. Dammit, give me—give me more than that. ...”

  Kepta rose, straightened, unfolding in midair so that he stood. He held out his hand. “I can’t. Take my hand. I’ll send you back to familiar referents ... after I’ve made a copy. This is a valuable point with you, this moment. If you disintegrate hereafter, I might try—perhaps once more with you. Only perhaps. I won’t risk the ship. You mustn’t depend on anything but yourself. Remember what I told you is important.”

  He thought back, and another thought came, far colder. “You know my mind inside and out. More than lying—isn’t it possible you know how to manipulate us? You know just what strings to pull, and when. You’re not learning things from this. You’re moving us—to do the things you want.”

  Kepta’s brows lifted slowly; as slowly, the mouth assumed a grudging smile. “Of all of you—you’re the first to challenge me on that. Of course I am. I see why the others value you, Paul Gaines. You do have surprises. And now you have a choice. Your hand ... if you will.”

  He held it out, repulsed as Kepta’s closed on his in a dry, temperatureless grip. Kepta’s clasp was strong, like living metal, perilous in its potentiality.

  “Don’t close down,” he said. “Let go!”—as the air around them dissolved and whirled in a blur of his own glowing limbs. “No!” he cried.

  It let go.

  Pain shot through him then.

  It was worse than he had expected, and longer. Far longer.

  “Kepta!” he cried, over and over again, “Jillan, Rafe! O God, God, God—!”

  —thinking he was dying. He remembered death.

  But he awoke in tranquility, in Rafe’s nest of Lindy’s parts.

  “You all right?” Rafe Two was leaning over him. Jillan wiped his brow and for a moment he lay there.

  He stopped breathing for a moment, experimentally; started it up again, not for air: for the comfort of it.

  “Paul, are you all right?”

  He let Rafe help him sit, hugged Jillan to him, her head against his shoulder. There was light. Light all about him. He cherished it, looking about him. He saw Rafe One standing there, helpless-looking in his solidity.

  “It got its copy,” he said to them all. “That was what it wanted. A lot better than the last, I think.”

  No, he had screamed. He remembered that suddenly.

  Remembered other things.

  He had taken terror into the experience. That, along with his self-knowledge and self-disgust.

  That was his backup. Flawed.

  VIII

  There was silence in the corridor, among Lindy’s pieces, the silence of waiting, when everything had been said, when the only needs were his own, and Rafe moved about those when he must, under the eyes of those whose remaining necessity was breathing, and that only because they could not forget to do it.

  To eat, to drink—these things seemed cruel to do while they witnessed; to sleep—Rafe did sleep as he sat against the wall, a nodding of his head, a panicked look to see whether they were still there.

  “All accounted for,” said Rafe Two, who read all his body language with more skill than Jillan ever could. “None of us have been anywhere.”—Meaning they were all intact, and as much themselves as they had been when he went to sleep.

  “I’d think,” said Jillan, “it could have gotten its business together by now.”

  “It’s waiting for something else,” Rafe said.

  “What would it be waiting for?” asked Paul.

  Rafe shrugged.

  “You know something we don’t?” asked Rafe Two.

  He shrugged again, wiped his face, got up and went about his toilet—shaved, because he needed it.

  “Not sorry to miss that.” Rafe Two perched on the counter edge, transparent and only partly phasing with it. In the mirror, Jillan and Paul leaned against the console of Lindy’s dead panel, watching him with proprietary interest.

  “I wish you wouldn’t stare,” he said.

  “S
orry,” Jillan said. “It’s the only action going.”

  Rafe-nothing crept along in the dark, blind as he had become. At times he thought he wept; but maybe that was illusion like the dark, for his hands felt nothing when he touched his face.

  He had seen horror. Some of it still lived inside, and consciousness came and went; but he had seen his chance and slipped away, crawling in the dark.

  He had had many limbs. And few. Now he had no understanding what shape was his. He only traveled as he could, as far as he could, and he supposed that limbs took him there.

  Then something began to move beside him in the void, shadowy at first, with the outlines of some leggy, rippling beast. It brushed against him and the touch of it sent a shock through all his nerves.

  He screamed. “Aii! Aiii!” it shrieked back at him, which so unnerved him he rolled aside from it and sat staring at this nest of coils and legs that swayed closer and closer, towering above him in black-glistening segments outlined in yellow light.

  “Help,” it cried, “help, help—” It was not himself which understood this, but one of those ruptured areas of his mind, one of those places that hung in painful ruin, like threads that went into the dark, into inside-out perspectives.

  He stared at it, and it oozed from its heap and surrounded him with its coils. He heard it sobbing, felt the shock of its nibbling up these stray threads, and the tears ran on his face.

  “Come, come, come,” it wished him. He understood it through these threads. He recalled in horror what he was, and what pursued. “Get up and run,” the worm-thing wailed. “It will take you. Run!”

  He wished to run. He tried to. A murkish glow came about them and the worm-thing fled.

  “No,” said Paul’s chill voice above him, and a firm grasp gathered him up again.

  He wept, having again more than several limbs, being in pain, while that monstrous shape enfolded all of them, in a welter of disturbed perspective. It swallowed up the threads, and he was blind.

  “Paul,” he tried to say, “Paul, that isn’t right.”

  “Rafael Murray,” the tall man said, taking him by the hand, bending down to their level. “Jillan—”—taking hers, so they knew something bad would come: nothing good ever came of Welfare strangers, not especially official ones in expensive suits, and he wished this man away with the horror of foreknowledge. “There’s been an accident,” the man would say next. “Out in the belt—”