After Earth

by Peter David

  “I seem to,” he agrees.

  “And your father’s chin.” She points to it. “You see the cleft?”

  “Yes.” My parents. He looks to the doctor. “Is it possible for me to see them?”

  As on other occasions, her eyebrows, which are very fair, come together in a bunch of skin. He knows now that this is an expression of consternation.

  “I’m afraid it’s not, Jon. They’re dead. They were killed in an Ursa attack six months ago.”

  He turns back to the data tablet. “Dead,” he echoes.

  “Yes. In fact, it was their deaths that spurred you to volunteer for the surgery. You said it was the only way you could make their deaths count for something.”

  Jon continues to study the image on the tablet. He doesn’t feel any anger now. But something—curiosity, perhaps—draws him to the people in the picture.

  “I’m sorry,” Doctor Gold says.

  Jon recognizes the expression as one of sympathy. “Your condolences are acknowledged,” he tells her.

  Days pass, an alternation of light and shadow punctuated by visits from Doctor Nizamani, Doctor Gold, and occasionally other doctors as well.

  Yada leaves, as she said she would. The damaged Rangers in the medicenter smile when they see him but seldom speak to him. He can hear them whisper things: “It’s Blackburn.” “Better cut out the jokes.” “Don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  In the gym, Jon’s promoted to the red machines. He finds them a challenge, just as he found the green machines and the yellow machines a challenge at first. But he’s getting stronger. He can see that. He believes his doctors see it, too.

  Pretty soon he’ll be fit for duty.

  Jon has another dream.

  He’s standing in the desert, watching Explorer I lift off from an airfield outside Nova City, its destination a world in another star system. Jon is eight, nine, perhaps ten years old. His father’s hand rests on his shoulder.

  “I wish my grandfather was alive to see this,” says Gregory Blackburn. “If not for him, none of this would have happened.”

  Explorer I glints in the light of the first sun as it rises into the flawless blue of the sky. Higher and higher it climbs. Then it’s gone.

  Jon’s father’s parents, Grandpa Masters and Grandma Sheila, are making whooping noises. Jon’s parents are embracing.

  They are smiling, all of them. He knows now what that means. They’re happy.

  When Jon wakes up, he finds himself looking at the ceiling of his room in the medicenter instead of the sky. The airfield, his parents, his grandparents … they’re gone.

  But it wasn’t just a dream, he realizes. It really happened. He had forgotten, but now he remembers.

  It happened.

  He wonders about his father’s grandfather. Did I ever meet him? Did I know anything about him before my procedure?

  He gets dressed and goes to the medicenter’s library, where he sits at a workstation near the transparent wall along the corridor and looks up his family’s genealogy.

  Jon finds that his paternal great-grandfather, Elliot Blackburn, was born in 883 AE. As an adult, he became the spokesman for a group of engineers that made presentations to the Tripartite Council advocating the official exploration of neighboring star systems. After all, they said, the Ursa had been the cause of misery for hundreds of years. It made sense to settle a planet that would provide an alternative for those sick of the bloodshed.

  Elliot Blackburn died without making much headway on behalf of his cause. However, his oldest son, Masters, picked up where his father left off. When Savant Ella Dorsey broached the idea of a space colonization program in 951, it was at the urging of Masters Blackburn.

  Dorsey’s idea was opposed by both the Primus on religious grounds and the Prime Commander for reasons never publicly stated. However, Jon’s grandfather continued to speak in support of colonization to professional organizations and civic groups.

  Finally, in 960, Brom Raige—who had become Prime Commander only a year earlier—tilted the Tripartite Council in favor of a space program.

  Tähtiin Industries, which had been working privately with the Savant, possessed plans for an interstellar vessel. With the Council’s support, Tähtiin began developing what it called Explorer I.

  Jon’s father, Gregory, had Explorer I in mind when he entered the terraforming program at Nova City University’s Thermopoulos School of Engineering. His dream, he said in his valedictory address, was to prepare a home for humankind free of the fear that had plagued Nova Prime for hundreds of years.

  Jon’s mother shared this dream, though she took a different route to it. Inspired by her mother, a Ranger flier in the Varuna Squadron, Adabelle Bonnaire became one of the youngest pilots in the history of the Corps. Her goal, according to her Ranger file, was to helm an interstellar vessel to the first new human colony in almost a thousand years.

  Jon’s parents met at a conference sponsored by Tähtiin Industries in 968. Gregory Blackburn was twenty-five at the time, a year older than his wife to be. They married a year later.

  They didn’t realize their dreams, Jon notes. His mother didn’t helm Explorer I. His father’s terraforming program wasn’t needed. Yet on that airfield, they were happy that humankind was following the course in which they believed.

  Jon has never aimed for the stars. His goal as a Ranger has been to destroy the threat represented by the Ursa on Nova Prime.

  However, he has something in common with his forebears: He began by wanting humankind to be safe from fear.

  Later that morning, Jon sees Doctor Gold. She smiles at him and asks, “How are you feeling?”

  He isn’t sure how to answer that. He reminds her of his deficit in the area of emotion.

  The doctor reddens. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s all right,” he says, having learned that a blush represents embarrassment. “This is a new experience for you as much as it is for me.”

  She smiles again. “Thanks for understanding. And allow me to rephrase the question: Have you noticed any changes in your mental state?”

  He assesses himself along those lines. “I’ve been thinking a lot, more than I ever did before. About my family, for instance.” He tells her about his dream of the airfield and what he did afterward. “I wonder if I’m trying to replace feeling with thinking.”

  “That’s interesting,” she says.

  He looks at her. “Is it?”

  “Well, yes, of course it is.” Then she adds: “Everything about you is interesting.” And she turns away from him to check the data on his holographic screen.

  Something changes in her expression, but Jon can’t decipher the change. His tutorial covers only so much.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks, venturing a guess.

  Doctor Gold shakes her head—a negative response, he’s learned—and says, “Everything’s fine.” But she continues to study the data.

  Then she runs out of screens. But instead of turning back to Jon, she turns away from him.

  This behavior, too, was covered in the tutorial. “You’re uncomfortable,” he observes.

  “No,” Doctor Gold says. “Just tired. I haven’t slept a lot lately.”

  He’s seen his records. He had difficulty sleeping, too, after his parents were killed. “An inability to fall asleep may be the result of unresolved emotional issues.”

  She looks up at him. “Where did you hear that?”

  “It’s noted in my file.”

  Doctor Gold laughs softly. “Right. You’re a smart guy, Jon.”

  His records support her observation. He placed first in his cadet class in all measures of intelligence.

  “Very smart,” Doctor Gold says. She places her hand on his and leaves it there.

  In the tutorial, such behavior is described as an indication of emotional involvement. Jon asks Doctor Gold if he is reading her gesture correctly.

  She takes her hand away. “You’re getting be
tter at interpreting behavior, Jon, but in this instance you’re reading into it a little too much.”

  “Then you’re not emotionally involved?”

  “I’m part of the medical team assigned to your case,” she says. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  He agrees to do so. After all, she’s his doctor.

  As Jon was taught, he doesn’t look away from Doctor Gold. He intends to wait until she does it first.

  But she doesn’t look away for a long time.

  Jon is sitting at his usual workstation in the medicenter library, looking up more information on his family, when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

  Looking back, he sees a tall, broad-shouldered man looming behind him. “Mind if I interrupt?” he asks.

  “No, sir,” Jon says, rising from his chair.

  His visitor is Prime Commander Raige. He and Jon met more than once before Jon’s procedure. That, too, is noted in Jon’s file.

  Raige says, “Good to see you again, Ranger.” He salutes.

  Jon knows why.

  “Let’s sit down,” Raige says. “No need to stand on ceremony.” He pulls a chair over from the next workstation, then points to Jon’s chair.

  “It’s a courageous thing you’re doing for us, Blackburn. Extremely courageous. We wouldn’t have selected you if we thought you were going into this precipitously. But you heard all the risks, and you volunteered anyway.

  “As you know, I am one of this procedure’s biggest supporters. It’s not just a matter of getting one more Ghost out there in the field, as valuable as that will be. If this works, there will be a lot more like you. An army of Ghosts. These Ursa are tougher than any we’ve faced before. Deadlier. We have to try anything and everything to keep more people from dying.”

  Just then, Jon catches a glimpse over Raige’s shoulder of someone out in the hallway, on the other side of the transparent wall. It’s Doctor Gold, he realizes. And she’s crying.

  Jon is familiar with the behavior. After all, it’s the first one he studied. But why is Doctor Gold engaging in it? Most of the time crying reflects sadness. Is Doctor Gold sad? For what reason?

  If she comes inside, he thinks, I’ll ask her. But she remains in the hallway. Jon continues to watch her and to wonder.

  “Is something wrong?” Raige asks. He looks back over his shoulder, perhaps trying to see what Jon sees. “What’s out there?”

  “Doctor Gold,” Jon says.

  Raige’s eyebrows come together in a knot of flesh, reflecting a measure of consternation. “Gold?” he says.

  “Yes. She’s one of my doctors.”

  Raige shakes his head. “I haven’t heard of a Doctor Gold. Maybe she’s new.”

  “She’s out there.” Jon points to the hallway, where she’s still crying.

  Raige looks over his shoulder, then back at Jon. “Hang on a second,” he says. He takes out his personal comm device and punches in a sequence. “I need you,” he says into the device. “Now.”

  A minute later, Doctor Nizamani enters the library.

  “Why is Doctor Gold crying?” Jon asks him.

  Doctor Nizamani looks at him for a moment, then turns to Raige. “Gold?”

  “I was hoping you would know,” Raige says.

  Nizamani looks at Jon again. “Why is Doctor Gold crying?” Jon asks a second time.

  Doctor Nizamani shakes his head. “There is no Doctor Gold.”

  Hallucinating? Jon thinks.

  “Don’t worry. It’s not entirely unexpected,” Doctor Nizamani says.

  “I’m not worried,” Jon says.

  Raige pats him on the shoulder. “He means me, Ranger. But I’m not worried, either. And neither is Doctor Nizamani … right, Doctor?”

  Doctor Nizamani’s mouth pulls up at the corners. A smile, Jon thinks. But one that was tighter than normal.

  “That’s right,” Doctor Nizamani says. “There’s no cause for any of us to be worried.” He sits down on the edge of Jon’s bed. “It’s perfectly natural. You’ve been cut off from your emotions. You’re finding other means of support.”

  Jon doesn’t understand.

  “Doctor Gold,” says Raige, “isn’t real.”

  “More than likely,” Doctor Nizamani says, “you’ve cobbled her together from other women you’ve known in your life.”

  “Not real?” Jon asks.

  He looks for Doctor Gold out in the hallway. If he can persuade her to come in, it’ll be obvious that she’s as real as Jon is.

  But he can’t find her. She’s gone.

  “He’s fine,” Doctor Nizamani tells Raige. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  “Our expectations are the same?” the Prime Commander asks.

  “Exactly the same,” Doctor Nizamani assures him.

  “Expectations?” Jon asks.

  “That you’ll be able to ghost,” Raige explains.

  But ghosting isn’t on Jon’s mind at this moment. He can’t take his eyes off the empty hallway.

  Jon is confused by the question of Doctor Gold’s existence.

  On the one hand, no one seems to know a doctor named Gold. Doctor Nizamani in particular is adamant that she’s an artifact of Jon’s imagination.

  On the other hand, Jon has spoken to her. He has shared his thoughts with her. On those occasions, she seemed as real as Doctor Nizamani or anyone else.

  In the end, the result is the same: Doctor Gold doesn’t come to see Jon anymore. A week goes by, and there’s no sign of her.

  It’s just as well. Jon will be sent out into the field in a couple of days. He has to spend all his time preparing for that moment.

  He studies video records of Ursa encounters. He trains with his cutlass, a new one, apparently, rather than the one he used previously. And, sitting around a table with the team that’s been assigned to him, he runs through one strategic scenario after another.

  Thanks to his limited familiarity with human expressions, Jon has some understanding of how his squad mates look at him. They see him as distinct from the rest of them. A valuable asset, to be sure, but different.

  Doctor Nizamani says their opinion of Jon will change once they’re out in the field with him. At that point they’ll establish a bond. Jon takes Doctor Nizamani’s word for it.

  Finally, he and his squad receive a mission. Jon is curious to find out if he’ll meet Prime Commander Raige’s expectations. Of course, no one will know until Jon encounters an Ursa.

  Blackburn’s orders take him and his squad to a school building on the South Side of Nova City. The day before, one of the creatures got into the school and killed two of the students there.

  Raige and his command staff have noticed that Ursa sometimes revisit the scene of a recent kill. It’s their hope that Blackburn and his squad will encounter the creature as it returns in search of more victims.

  As squad leader, Jon leads the way through the front doors of the school and down the main hallway. Despite everyone’s efforts to be quiet, they make scraping sounds with their boots that echo from wall to wall.

  The others seem to be bothered by the sounds. Jon knows that the scraping may give their presence away, but he’s not bothered by it.

  A classroom comes up on Jon’s left. He indicates with a hand gesture that he’s going to take a look inside. The others assume positions in the hallway in case an Ursa comes charging out.

  Jon opens the door, but there’s no Ursa beyond it. The room is quiet, empty. However, it’s clear that an Ursa was there at one time.

  There’s blood on the floor. A good deal of it, in dark, dry blotches where it dripped and collected and in streaks where the children’s bodies were dragged by the Ursa across the room.

  A couple of chairs have been overturned. There’s blood on them as well.

  Saturria, a squarish, muscular man, curses between clenched teeth: “Bastards.” Jakande, lean and quick, draws a deep, ragged breath. Though Tseng does neither of these things, a single tear traces a path down her cheek
. No sooner has it fallen than she wipes it away.

  They’re reacting to the evidence of the children’s deaths, Jon notes. Even though they’re trained to confront such a sight, even though they have probably seen death before.

  Jon himself has no such reaction.

  Perhaps because he’s not distracted, he hears something. A ripping noise. He recognizes it as one of the sounds an Ursa makes in its throat.

  With a hand signal, Jon gets the attention of the other Rangers. Then he points to the direction from which the sound came.

  They take their places around the room. Noiselessly, their cutlasses assume the shapes the Rangers want from them: pikes, blades, hooks.

  They wait, their backs against the walls, their eyes fixed on the doorway.

  All but Jon. He takes up a position by the entrance that doesn’t block the doorway but makes it impossible for the Ursa to miss him. If, of course, it’s capable of detecting him at all.

  As the Ursa gets closer, the sound it makes changes, becoming louder, deeper. More terrifying, as well, if the looks on the faces of Jon’s teammates are any indication.

  Then the creature comes around a corner out in the hallway, and Jon gets his first look at its pale, powerful form. He can see its huge black maw, which is ringed by double rows of sharp silver teeth. He can see the talons that are hard enough to score metal, hear them make soft clicking sounds on the floor.

  Despite the Ursa’s apparent lack of sensory organs, it has a range of senses. Humanity’s scientists have examined Ursa carcasses and identified organs that facilitate hearing, smell, and touch. It’s only a sight organ they haven’t found, long ago leading them to the conclusion that the creatures can’t see and that their creators, the Skrel, may not be able to do so, either.

  The Ursa, however, more than makes up for the deficit with its ability to perceive fear. This sense is its most acute by far. That’s why Ghosts are so valuable to the colony, valuable enough for Doctor Nizamani to invade a man’s brain and permanently impair its functions.

  The data, drummed into Jon in briefing after briefing, sift through his mind. There’s another piece: the Ursa’s ability to utilize camouflage with the help of color-changing cells in its skin. But this specimen, like a few others the Rangers have encountered, makes no attempt to conceal itself.