This Alien Shore

by C. S. Friedman

  “That isn’t the issue.”

  The dark eyes narrowed. He had rarely seen Masada angry; it was strangely refreshing to see a human emotion on that impassive face, one that he recognized.

  “Master Hsing, you hired me onto this job because the Guild was threatened. A virus is loose in the outworlds which can take down your outpilots ... and because of that, it threatens all of human civilization. Or at least, so you told me. It strikes me that a threat like that is a little more important than whether some rich tourist from Paradise can access the latest Ima Starshine viddie to go to sleep by. Now, if you feel I’m wrong in that assessment, you just tell me now and I’ll withdraw all my data from the ship’s innernet, and let the captain run his systems in peace. Otherwise, I would very much appreciate it if you would let me get back to my work.”

  You bastard, Hsing thought. You knew exactly what systems you were crowding out, and exactly what the effects would be. Nothing you do is an accident, is it? Anger was an impotent emotion in such a situation, but it rose up in him anyway, and it took all of his guild training and his nantana experience not to let it show. Why the hell didn’t you at least tell me, so I could be prepared?

  “Give the food programs the space they need,” he told Masada. “At least let me give the captain that much.”

  “Everything you take away from me slows my work down that much.”

  The anger reached his voice at last. “Food programs. Wellness tracking. Anything else that deals with health or life support. I don’t want those programs slowed down by so much as a nanosecond, Dr. Masada.” He paused. “Or at least, not enough that any of the passengers will notice. You understand me?”

  The dark eyes turned to him, unreadable once more. “And the rest?”

  He started to say something equally angry, then drew in a long, hard breath. The man was right, damn him. What he was doing mattered ten thousand times more than the comfort of a handful of tourists, and both of them knew it. But where was that thin line drawn, between the liberties they could take and the peace they must have? The Guild had never been tyrants. If they became so now, then they would lose more in the long run than any data processing could gain them.

  “You just make sure those programs get freed up,” he said gruffly. “I’ll deal with the captain on the rest.”

  God, he’d be glad to get back home, to the nantana who normally attended him. They’d be plotting against him, of course. He expected as much. They’d have spent the past year preparing for his return, and God alone knew what subtle and devious traps awaited him. Their machinations were complex, sophisticated, deadly. He dreaded discovering what they were. But it was a game that he understood, and if he didn’t play it well, he wouldn’t be where he was.

  It would be a breath of fresh air after this assignment.

  Cursing all iru under his breath, he went to find the captain.

  Each Node will provide a waystation, not more than ten hours’ flight from the nearest exit point of the nearest ainniq.

  This waystation must be of sufficient size and structure to house all travelers passing through the system, with amenities and services sufficient to sustain all known human types in reasonable comfort.

  No human traveling the ainniq shall be denied access to the waystation.

  Cost of services will be uniform for all humans. Laws and law enforcement will affect all humans equally.

  Public behavior may be circumscribed within reason.

  Private behavior may not be circumscribed unless it poses a threat to station security.

  Any Node failing to provide the above services, or failing to comply with the conditions listed, will be suspended from outpilot service until the offense is corrected.

  Failure to correct the offense, or a pattern of repeated offenses, may result in permanent Isolation.

  Master Contract of the Ainniq Guild, section 4 (also called the Low of Universal Access)

  METROLINER: AURORA

  “MS. CAPRA?”

  Fuzzy thoughts. Hard to grasp. Mechanized voice speaking through piles of wadding.

  “Ms. Capra. Can you hear me?”

  She struggled up from the thick, warm depths to the place where her own voice resided.

  “Ms. Capra. Please respond.”

  “I ...” She drew in a deep breath and coughed; her lungs felt like they were filled with cotton. “I hear you.”

  “Are you all right, Ms. Capra? This program requires confirmation.”

  She glanced toward the place in her field of vision where the wellseeker display should be. It was blank. “I ... don’t know. My wellseeker ...” It took so much effort to speak, those were all the words she could manage. She hoped the program understood.

  Where was she?

  “Your wellseeker was shut down at the beginning of suspension, Ms. Capra. That was necessary to keep it from interfering with the process. You can bring it back on line by using the proper icon. Please do so now.”

  It took her a minute, her mind was still fuzzy. The triple spiral design took shape slowly in her head; she traced its pattern three times in red, hoping her mind’s eye was steady enough to make the icon work.

  Apparently it was, for the program began to scroll through a host of biological measurements. Many of the readings were slower than usual, or colder than usual, or otherwise slightly off kilter, but none by so much that it mattered. ACTION? the program inquired when it was done. She hesitated, then flashed it a negative icon: NO.

  She was beginning to remember.

  “Ms. Capra, please confirm your biological status.”

  “It’s ... it’s all right.” The cotton was dissolving now, she could hear almost normally. In the distance there were footsteps, voices. “I’m okay.”

  “You perceive of no condition requiring external attention?”

  She checked the wellseeker’s display again; already the readings were much closer to normal. “No. I’m fine.”

  “Confirmation acknowledged. This suspension program is now terminated. Have a good journey, Ms. Capra.”

  Slowly, carefully, she opened her eyes. At first all she saw were blurry shapes, then those resolved somewhat. She blinked hard, trying to conjure clearer vision. She was lying in a contoured shell of some kind, affixed to the wall alongside dozens of others....

  The outship. Of course. She remembered now.

  She pushed herself up to a seated position. A Guild technician glanced at her, then went back to his work. Several other passengers had just regained consciousness, as she had, and were staring about the ship in a kind of dazed confusion. Perhaps a dozen of the shells were still shut, no doubt with recovery programs droning inside, questioning the occupants. As she watched, the lid of one slid open, and its occupant—a young boy whom she had met on the transport—slowly rose to a seated position, blinking heavily.

  Yes, she remembered now. The long trip to the Guild station. Final clearance. Her disappointment when it was explained to her that the outship was sealed tight, with no view of the outside universe, and that passengers would be put to sleep for the duration of the voyage. Some rich idiot from Earth had tried to talk the Guerans into letting him do otherwise, she remembered; he had offered millions in the currency of their choice to let him look at the ainniq while they were in transit, just for a minute. They had ignored his offer, then his protests, and then strapped him into a suspension shell just like everyone else. No one who was not of the Guild would be permitted to see the ainniq from the inside.

  Jamisia had seen it from the outside, though. Just for a moment, as the transport approached the Guild station, it had been there—a flicker of maverick light, surreal, a shifting veil that took form, shimmered, and then suddenly was gone. She had kept her face pressed to the window, hoping for one more sight of it, but apparently the angle was wrong, or something. Half the people on the transport hadn’t seen it at all, and they were quite upset to learn that she had. Apparently the position required for viewing was precise enough t
hat being seated across the aisle, or farther toward the prow of the transport, kept one out of proper alignment.

  “You’re lucky,” a steward had told her later. “Few ever get to see that much.”

  With a groan she levered herself out of the shell and onto her feet; there was gravity in the ship, just enough to let her steady herself. The Guild claimed that all their precautions were required to protect the passengers, but she wasn’t sure she believed them. She knew that there were creatures inside the ainniq that would attack any human invader—everybody knew that—but she really didn’t see how a lack of windows was going to save people from that. Or why the passengers had been forced to sleep through the journey. Was it just to protect them from fear, or to keep them from interfering with official business in midvoyage? It had been decades now since the Guild had lost a ship, so it wasn’t like they were really in any kind of danger. She suspected the Guerans just didn t want to have to deal with so many “dirtborn,” and so they drugged them and shelled them and stowed them in the main chamber like so much baggage.

  At any rate, it was over now. She stretched her stiff limbs, noting some bruising along her right arm. The wellseeker would deal with that automatically, she knew; within hours the damaged cells would be repaired, and the discoloration would be gone. She wondered what had caused it. Other passengers seemed to be similarly damaged, so it must have been something that had happened during the journey. Well, she thought, that was what happened when people weren’t awake to take care of themselves. She wondered if anyone ever sued over it, then remembered the releases she’d had to sign before they would let her on board.... No, the Guild apparently thought of everything. No lawsuits.

  By the time she felt fully alert again, the last of the shells had opened, and the aisle was filled with jumpsuited passengers working out the kinks and cramps of the voyage. One woman seemed to have some difficulty breathing and needed assistance; apparently it was a common side effect of the suspension process, for the stewards seemed to know exactly what to do, and had clearly practiced their response many, many times. A quick adjustment to her headset, some kind of program feeding in from the ship’s medical bank—she watched as the woman drew in one long, tortured breath, testing the capacity of her lungs. Then a second one, more easily. A guarded smile spread across her face, and the stewards moved on to other problems.

  “Ms. Capra?”

  She turned about to find one of them behind her, waiting for her response. “Yes?”

  “Would you come with me, please?”

  It took her a moment for the words to sink in. She looked around, saw that none of the other passengers were being approached with such a request. Something in her chest tightened.

  This isn’t right, Derik warned.

  Her wellseeker warned her that her blood pressure was rising; she almost asked it for a tranquilizer, then decided against it. It might soon be more important to be alert than it was to be calm.

  No, she agreed with him, it isn’t right, but what can I do?

  “What ... what is this about?”

  “Just a few questions, Ms. Capra. It won’t take long.”

  “Let me get my bags,” she said. Partly to make sure her possessions stayed with her, mostly to stall. She needed a minute to pull herself together. Was she overreacting? The fears of half a dozen Others were pouring into her brain; it was hard to think clearly, much less act.

  God, there was nowhere to run....

  “That’s not necessary,” the steward told her, and he took her gently by the arm, urging her forward. “The crew will take care of your things.”

  “I want my fucking bags!” The venom poured into her soul with such force that she felt like she’d choke on it if she didn’t spit it out at him. “You got that, you bastard? Take your hands off me NOW.”

  Stunned, the steward stepped back. The other passengers had stopped their stretching and were watching her, all of them. Fucking idiots.

  Derik....

  Just a helping hand, he thought gruffly. Go get your bags.

  Shaken, she went to the forward compartment where carry-on luggage was stored. What the hell was that? Usually the Others either took control or they didn’t, the change was always a shock, but at least it was clear-cut. God help her if they started inserting thoughts in her brain while she was still herself.

  Don’t sweat it. Derik was grinning, she could hear it in his voice. We’re all on the same team, remember?

  Oh, God, she thought, I just want this to end, I just want to be normal again.... She shouldered the heavy bags, took a deep breath, and then turned to face the steward. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Had she ever been “normal?”

  Forward they walked, past the passenger compartments—there were twelve in all—into the command section of the ship. When they passed the place where workers were fixing an exit tunnel in place, she was tempted to simply break away from the steward and run down that tunnel with all possible speed, but that would only take her as far as the first customs barrier, she knew, and then they would have her again. No, it was better to pretend she didn’t know anything was wrong. That way at least she’d have time to figure out what to do.

  He led her into a part of the ship clearly not meant for passengers; black-robed Guerans brushed by them, intent upon the business of docking. She shivered a bit when they came in contact with her; it was an involuntary reaction, and she was embarrassed by it. If she could stand the sight of Variants with truly repellent deformities, why did these people scare her? They looked human enough, and as for their minds ... it was said that all the Gueran Variations had existed on ancient Earth, so her ancestors had dealt with them. You couldn’t say that about the other Variants. So why did their painted faces and black-robed bodies make her skin crawl?

  To her surprise the steward led her off the ship, guiding her away from the customs checkpoint and down a narrow corridor which she guessed served the command crew of the vessel. To her right as she exited she could see a line of passengers gathering outside the checkpoint portals. Visas, a sign said at one gateway, and at another, Immigration. The steward took her to neither, but instead led the way to a small group of offices; opening a door, he ushered her inside.

  “In here, Ms. Capra.”

  Trembling, she entered. There were two men in the room, both of them Gueran. The figures painted on their faces were so fierce and strange she could read no human emotion in their expressions.

  Who are they? one of the Others whispered in her brain.

  What do they want?

  How much do they know?

  “Jamisia Capra.” One of the men gestured toward the room’s only table; after a moment she realized what he wanted, and placed her bags on top of it.

  “You’re from Lansing Habitat, yes?” He paused in the manner of one consulting an internal list. Or else ... she looked at his headset, then at the small transmission nodes set into the comers of the ceiling, and it suddenly struck her that she was in outernet territory. Here and now. If she’d thought to have her headset on, she could link up to it right now, just like these two men undoubtedly were doing. For a moment sheer wonder banished all fear. God, if she could only get through this meeting, who knew what wonders were out there?

  Lansing Habitat. It was part of the false history her tutor had created for her. Were they questioning that, did they sense it was wrong? She tried to look calmer than she felt as she nodded. Maybe it was time for tranquilizers, after all.

  “I have a few questions for you, Ms. Capra. Nothing to be concerned about. In the meantime,” he nodded toward his companion, “my assistant will do customs clearance on your bags, to save you additional inconvenience. I understand these are all you have?”

  She nodded somewhat numbly, watching as the man checked through her jewelry, her clothing, her very few keepsakes. What did they expect to find? God—she almost laughed—did they think she was a smuggler? Was that what this was all about?

&nbs
p; You are, though, Verina reminded her. You smuggled from Earth a brainware prototype they’d give their right arms to find-

  —Only they ain’t gonna find it in your bags, Derik added. She tried to watch what the one man was doing with her things, but the other one had questions which required her attention. How long had she lived on the habitat? When was the last time she’d left it? Had she visited Earth proper in the last ten years, and if so, where and when and for how long? Some of those questions she could hardly answer, she had to apologize and hoped they were patient while she tried to locate some internal log that would have dates on it. At last she simply called up her diary and adapted the relevant sections. The closer she stayed to the truth, the safer she would be. She tried not to become distracted as other paragraphs scrolled before her eyes, mysteries that had once obsessed her ... lost time, unexplained possessions, a stranger’s face staring back from her mirror. Once she had thought that if she could only understand those things, her whole life would come together. Little did she know.

  There were surprisingly few questions, overall. Was that truly strange, or was it only her fear that had caused her to expect worse? “All right, then,” her inquisitor said at last. He looked at the man with her bags, who nodded. “That’s all, Ms. Capra. So sorry for the inconvenience.”