This Alien Shore

by C. S. Friedman

  “That’s all?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Her surprise was undisguised.

  “That’s all,” the man assured her. An expression that might have been a smile twisted the patterns on his face, and as the other man gave her bags back to her he offered, “It’s not often we have folks complaining that we didn’t harass them enough. Here you are, Ms. Capra.” Despite her protests that she didn’t need assistance, he insisted on helping her hoist the thick straps to her shoulder. One of them pinched her painfully until she twisted it so it fell right, but she winced and bore it with a half-hearted smile; he was trying to help.

  And then they let her go. Just like that. Like she was anyone else, nothing to hide, no secrets.... They opened the door and ushered her out and even said good-bye to her, like this was some kind of social visit. Pretty strange. She started to move toward the portal marked Immigration, but the nearer Gueran caught her by the arm and stopped her.

  “No need,” he said. “Your file’s been cleared for immigration. Enjoy the outworlds.”

  She stared at the line, then at him. And at the line again.

  “Everything is taken care of,” the other man assured her.

  There would be dozens of officers in that other area. Hundreds of passengers, if not thousands, would be processed in the next few hours. If someone were watching for her arrival, they would expect her to pass through that portal. And the crowds would be such that if someone tried to get to her there, to do God knows what, very likely no one would notice. Or care. They could even figure out exactly when she was coming through the checkpoint if they hacked into Immigration’s files, because no one entered the station without being processed first. How easy it would be to set up a trap. Anyone who was hunting for her was probably right in there, trying to sort her out from among the crowd.

  She started to run ... then stopped, and forced herself to drop to a brisk walk. She didn’t dare draw attention to herself, not when her pursuers might be so close. As she passed through the portal the Gueran crew normally used, she waited for one of the Others to protest that she was being too paranoid. But no one did. It was a very, very bad sign.

  Those men knew something, Katlyn whispered.

  Damn right they did! Derik agreed. So why the fuck did they let us go?

  Why indeed? She tried to come up with a reason—and was suddenly overcome by the whole situation, the sheer complexity of what her life had become. Only by pushing the whole question out of her mind could she even keep walking, much less functioning mentally. As it was, she felt nauseous; not a physical malady, but pure spiritual vertigo. Got to make it out of this area while I can, she told herself sternly. Got to find a safe place before I lose it.

  Her shoulder still stung where the strap had pinched it; she shifted the bags as she walked, then ordered her well-keeper to kill the pain. Under one security arch and then another she walked warily, machinery humming as it checked her for the dozen or so contraband substances on this day’s watchlist. No drugs, she thought, no weapons, no explosives ... only a few ounces of brainware that she would rip out of her head if she could, and a dozen more personalities than any one body should contain. Only that.

  The arches did not protest her passage.

  The promenade of the docking ring was a vast, curving corridor teeming with travelers of all Variants and destinations. The crowd jostled by her with hurried indifference, each individual headed toward a different gate, a different station. They call them worlds here, she reminded herself. Just like they were real planets. The far wall was lined with viddie screens, each one blaring a different advertisement. YOUR FIRST TOUR OF THE OUTWORLDS BEGINS WITH US! one announced, and below the scrolling description an eddress blazed in fiery orange. A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS OF WONDER another beckoned, and that one offered an icon proper as well as the more prosaic text eddress. Triddie letters blazed overhead, scrolling through empty air as passengers hurried underneath. It was all too much for her, her brain ached from trying to make sense of it all. God, was anyone supposed to actually read all those things? She had to shut her eyes for a moment just to think. Was this what all the outworlds were like? A new wave of vertigo overwhelmed her, and she had to reach out a hand against the nearest screen to steady herself. ROOMS TO SUIT THE MOST EXOTIC TASTES, it proclaimed. Words scrolling over her hand....

  Where was she supposed to go now? What was she supposed to do? Oh, she’d come up with some ideas on the metroliner—more ideas than any one person deserved, for most of the Others had spent the last three years bickering over their communal fate—but this was real, this was now. This was standing in the middle of an unknown station some zillion miles from Earth, and not having family or friends or a home or job or anything. Oh, God—where did you even start? She felt tears coming to her eyes and tried to fight them back; she didn’t want to start crying here. A set of four identical young men passed by, glanced her way, and then hurried on. She couldn’t even remember the name of the planet that Variation came from, though she’d learned it in grade school. Then there was another creature who looked like an insect and a pair of Variants with what looked like snakes sprouting from their shoulders. She forced herself to ignore them and stagger onward. Her only hope lay in putting sufficient distance between herself and the checkpoint so when her enemies realized she had gotten away, they could no longer find her. And for that she needed to keep moving.

  She passed more than twenty gates, each with its own crowd of humans and Variants embarking, or disembarking, or ... whatever. Some walked, some crawled, others used automotive devices of a dozen different types; some of the latter seemed to be necessities rather than luxuries, the beings encased within them hardly capable of independent locomotion. Once or twice she stopped to stare at one, and had to force herself not to, to move on. God, they were so alien. ... Was it that there were simply more of them here, which made the sight of them so unnerving? The metroliner’s population had been mostly true-human; as frightening as the Variants were, they had always been outnumbered by creatures more familiar. Not so here. She passed by a gate which must be assigned to some planet; nearly all of the people there were of the same somatype. Long limbs covered with some kind of natural armor, more insectoid than human. She forced herself not to look, to keep walking. How far was it to the nearest place where she could exit the ring, and try to lose herself in the station proper? As long as she was trapped in this simple corridor, it would take little effort for her enemies to find her.

  If her enemies were here. If the letter Justin had waylaid had in fact been delivered to someone....

  Count on it, Derik said harshly. That shit back at customs was no accident. Something’s going on that we don’t know about, which means we need to get out of here FAST.

  Jamisia agreed. But where? She couldn’t get through one of the gates without a passcode; only legitimate passengers would be allowed into the docks themselves. What else was there? She searched the ring with anxious eyes, and to her surprise—and relief—saw that up ahead its configuration changed. The corridor widened out, into a plaza lined with sales cubicles. Food, tools, and all the necessities of life were laid out in neat displays for travelers to peruse. The sight of food made Jamisia’s stomach growl, but she had more important things to take care of right now. The vendors could answer her questions, the vendors could tell her where to go—

  And then she saw the sign.

  OUTERNET SUPPLIES, it said. Bright gold letters floating over a crowded booth. HEADSETS FOR ALL BRAINWARE CONFIGURATIONS. INTERFACES. GUIDECHIPS. She elbowed her way to the counter, ignoring the bright displays, and looked for the vendor. It was a tnddie figure, but that was all right; now that she knew what she wanted, a holoclerk would be good enough.

  “I need an outernet link,” she said, rummaging through her bag to retrieve her headset. “For ...” She couldn’t read the fine print on it, finally just held it out to him. The figure was silent as somewhere, somehow, cams recorded, stored, and an
alyzed the corporate markings. “Shido 9135,” he said at last. “An excellent model for the inworlds. For the outernet, however, I would suggest not only a Nagoni model 476B Interface, but an additional software package—”

  “Just the interface for now,” she interrupted. She began to pull out her debit chip—and then stopped, suddenly afraid, as she realized what that could lead to. What if someone was watching for her codes to turn up on a vendor log? She would have to spend money sooner or later; it was the surest way for anyone to find her. Oh, God—what was she going to do! She rummaged in her bag for some alternative, found a handful of cash chits at the bottom. God willing there were enough. She poured them onto the counter and counted them quickly; on both sides people were staring now, watching the strange and primitive transaction take place. One hundred. Two. That was enough. She gathered up the chits in her hand again and offered them to the vendor, heart pounding. With any luck his program could handle cash chits. If not ... then she didn’t know what she would do.

  He stared at it for a minute. She held her breath. “Terran corporate,” he said at last. “I must inform you that there will be a 12% charge for processing, above and beyond current exchange rates.”

  “That’s fine.” The stranglehold on her heart loosened up a bit. “Just give me the total.”

  It was almost more than she had. In the end there were only three chits left in her palm, of such denominations as would hardly buy her lunch. If the food vendors even took chits, which she doubted. She was going to have to find someone who could alter her debit chip, and soon. Or at least get far enough away from this place that she didn’t envision her pursuers lurking behind every comer.

  She found a comer of the vending area which was less crowded than most and took refuge there, feeding the software into her headset. Her hands were shaking, and she couldn’t stop them. God, this wasn’t how she had dreamed of entering the outernet for the first time, this half-baked race for data. At last it was uploaded properly, and she put the headset in place; tiny icons flashed their approval as contact after contact lined up with the ones embedded in her skull. Then came the blessed words ALL CLEAR, and she visualized the icon that would start the software running.

  *** WELCOME TO THE NAGONI 476B INTERFACE ***

  IN ORDER TO SERVE YOU MORE EFFECTIVELY, NAGONI CORPORATION WOULD LIKE SOME INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR PAST NETWORK EXPERIENCE. THIS WILL BE USED TO

  “Fuck that!” Derik had taken control, but it only lasted a moment. Then he was gone and Raven slid neatly into place, taking control not only of the brain they shared but of the brainware as well. With blinding speed she fed a dozen icons and text codes into the visual processor; half of them were things Jamisia had never seen.

  ... TO USE IF YOU WISH TO DO THAT LATER. COMPLETE LISTING OF NAGONI’S PRODUCTS CAN BE OBTAINED BY ...

  Now Raven swore. It was less colorful than Derik’s usual expletives, but under the circumstances, even more unnerving. Raven understood programming better than any of them; if she couldn’t get the interface to do its job quickly, none of them could.

  God damn it, all they needed was a simple map of the station; if she were back home, Jamisia could have accessed it by now. Why the hell wasn’t planetary Earth on the same headset standard as the rest of the universe?

  *** WELCOME TO THE OUTERNET GATEWAY ***

  “Yeah, yeah.” Raven flashed through half a dozen displays impatiently, messages designed to soothe the rockborn mto feeling comfortable with the vastness and the vagueness of the electronic entity they were about to become part of. She had no time for any of that crap. At last she got to one display that mattered, ENTER YOUR BRAINWARE SPECS FOR REGISTRATION, and she gave it the false specs her tutor had provided: Hauck 9200, model 42A. It wasn’t the name of what was really in her head, but it was still hellishly impressive; not one in thousands would have a current-model Hauck, and as for the 42 series—

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Jamisia tried to shut the program down. But it had already made contact with the outernet registration programs, and was uploading the data she had given it. SHIT! Only one in ten thousand might have brainware like she did, and if her enemy had gotten any information on her at all, he might know what to look for. He could have hacked into those programs and set up a sniffer, how hard would that have been? He already knew when and where her ship was coming in. It was a good bet she’d sign on to the outernet as soon as she got an interface program, and this was the closest supply point—

  Jamisia ran. Somewhere in the back of her head, using her own little comer of their brainware, Raven was still searching for data. Jamisia just concentrated on running, on getting as far away from that vendor area as she possibly could, in as little time as she could manage it. Deep inside she knew that it was a mistake, that running made her stand out from the crowd and put her in even greater danger, but she couldn’t stop herself. The sudden feeling of being trapped, of finding herself surrounded by faceless enemies at every turn, had triggered memories that were even more terrifying. Like being buried beneath a mountain of rubble. Like feeling the air squeezed out of her lungs with every tortured breath. Like knowing that she was trapped, trapped forever, there wasn’t now and never would be any way out—

  Someone grabbed her, strong hands on both arms jerking her to a stop. For a moment she couldn’t even respond, as her mental circuits struggled to switch gears from terrors of the past to those of the present. Derik took over their flesh then and almost managed to pull himself loose, but despite his dreams of male bravado, it was only a small and slender body he was wearing, and not a very strong one at that. The hands held her tight.

  “Easy, girl, easy! I’m trying to help. Calm down.”

  Gasping, she subsided. The man holding onto her looked mostly human, though his skin was streaked with blue; she couldn’t tell through her frightened tears if that was a Variation proper, or just some alien cosmetic custom. “Calm down. It’s all right. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I ... I ...” She was back in control of her body now, and gasping for breath. What should she say? She could hardly dare trust this stranger, whose only contact with her thus far had been to witness her panicked flight. God alone knew who he was, or what he would do if he even guessed at the truth. But she needed someone to help her. She couldn’t get away from her pursuers by herself. “I need to get off the docking ring,” she gasped. “Away from here.” God, if he would only help her do that it would be enough, it didn’t even matter right now where she went. “Fast ....”

  He hesitated only for an instant, then straightened up and moved through the nearest gate. His strong hand on her arm would have made it hard for her to break free, but right now she was happy to stay with him. “I don’t have a—” she began, but he whispered “Shhhhh” to quiet her. He paused for a moment when they reached the gate, and she realized that he was feeding it a passcode through his headset. ACKNOWLEDGED, the display confirmed. SECOND CODE? With a start Jamisia realized it was asking for her passcode. “I can’t—” she began ... and then she realized that he was in communication with the gate’s security program once more. CAPTAIN’S OVERRIDE ACKNOWLEDGED, it said at last. And the gate irised open.

  He led her through with a firm grip, and she heard the door hiss shut behind them. The dock they had entered was a small one, and it led to a sleek private vessel being prepared for flight. His ship? She glanced up at him, saw him nod ever so slightly. His ship.

  She looked behind her, back the way they had come. The gate was closed now, and no one without a suitable passcode would be able to make it open. For the first time in too many hours she managed to relax a bit. Safe for now, she told herself. Granted, it was a small safety—in the presence of strangers, in a dock about to be emptied—but in contrast to where she’d been a few minutes ago it seemed like heaven.

  The pilot’s hand was still on her arm; not until her breathing had slowed and her heartbeat was close to normal did he rel
ease her. “Now,” he said, and his tone was gentle, reassuring, “want to tell me what all this is about?”

  She hesitated. It was tempting to imagine she could trust such a man, spill her secrets, gain aid ... but only a fool would actually do so. She hurriedly tested a few lies in her mind, but none sounded valid enough that they would assuage this man’s suspicions. At last she decided the best thing to do was put off the issue ... hopefully until after he got her out this place.

  She put on her best helpless-young-girl face and murmured, “I can’t. I’m sorry. But I can’t.” Hell, sometimes it worked.

  If he meant to question her further, he didn’t get the chance. Another man was coming up to them, this one a slender figure in a no-G jumpsuit.

  “No more time for girlfriends, Allo.” His face, sculpted in sharp angles, was softened somewhat by a teasing grin. “Ship’s almost ready to go.” As he nodded toward the ship, she saw his Variation: a half-dozen tendrils cascading down from the back of his head in the place of hair, which twitched and curled as he spoke. She remembered that Variation from her schooling, and knew that the slang name for his home planet was Medusa; what the real name was, though, she couldn’t recall.

  “Found this one running along the concourse, scared of something. Says she needs to get off the docking ring, fast, but won’t tell me why.”

  She watched while the Medusan absorbed that. “Is that so?” he said at last, and to her, “Where are you trying to go?”

  Jamisia bit her lip, wondering what to say. At last she ventured, “Doesn’t matter.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Got money?”