This Alien Shore

by C. S. Friedman

  It came directly into his head, and spread itself out across his field of vision. He shut his eyes to make it clearer.

  TROUBLE COMING. THE ENEMY SEEKS CHILDREN. SEND ALL HOME ASAP. LUX AETERNA.

  Sleep was gone from his brain in an instant. His hands on the coverlet flexed and unflexed, as he read the message again. And again. Damn, but it looked promising.

  “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

  “Being sent out from the Front’s main processor.”

  “Do you know where it’s going?”

  A pause. “We have the codes. We’re working on them. I thought you would want to see this right away.”

  “You’re right. I did. Thank you.” Jesus Christ, they’d caught the bastards at something, at last! Was it Lucifer? The signature certainly implied that.

  If so ... he drew in a deep breath, feeling the flush of impending triumph flood his system. He’d watched two pilots killed by this thing. One of them had died in his arms, struggling against the plasteel bonds that kept him from tearing out his own throat. Varsav had sworn vengeance upon the maker of Lucifer, above and beyond anything the Guild might seek. Those were his people who were killed, outpilots supposedly in his care, for whom he was responsible. The man who had attacked them attacked him as well.

  And now perhaps they had a way to take the bastard down.

  He read the message again. There was no mistaking the conspiratorial tone. And it had come up in response to one of his search clusters for Lucifer ... he glanced at the date and time to see just when the original message had been sent. With the monumental backlog of correspondence his people had to sort through on this project, it could have been hours ago. Days, even.

  He looked at the date given for transmission. It was some time ago, all right. Nearly two days. Long enough for the data trail to be stone cold ... as if they could follow it anyway. The Front wasn’t likely to let him search their station computers, not without a warrant from the Prima, and even then they’d fight about it.

  Two days . . .

  A thought nagged at him. He tried to ignore it, focusing once more on what a pleasure it would be to prove that the Isolationists were connected with Lucifer. What if they were the ones who had launched it in the first place? What if he could find evidence of that? Or perhaps ... create evidence of that?

  Two days.

  He tried not to remember the man who had stood in his office only hours ago, complaining of a pod in the Front’s station space. He tried to ignore that, because it wasn’t at all connected to this.

  Was it?

  With a muttered groan he flashed up a general control icon and called for his personal files. The Front’s complaint was there, waiting for him. He read it again, and looked for the part that told when the spatial transgression had taken place.

  And then he called up the letter his people had intercepted.

  And cursed, rather loudly.

  “Sir?”

  He struck the com hard enough not only to turn it off, but to jar its control switch out of alignment as well. He also flashed up the icon that would shut off his language inhibitors, and indulged in a stream of invective so fierce and so hostile that letting it loose was like cleaning out all the garbage in his soul.

  After that, he could think.

  The pod had come into station space about the same time that letter was transmitted. Not exactly the same time. The link wasn’t clear. If he ignored it now, and simply reported the stolen letter to the Prima, no one would know to question it. It was clear enough that the Front was engaged in some calumny, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that enough? Hell, he’d been all but ready to make up false evidence to get those bastards in trouble. Was it such a little thing to fail to mention that this obviously offensive document might be somehow connected to the act of an outside agency?

  He wanted this letter to be from the Front. He knew in his heart that it had to be.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  He rose up from bed with a groan and started pacing. Sometimes it helped him think, to let his body move freely. He passed by the mirror and saw his reflection in it. It was strange to see himself thus, without a uniform. He was Guild through and through, always had been, and now he felt doubly naked for not wearing the Guild sign somewhere on his bare skin.

  If he lied about this ... no, don’t call it lying, he urged himself, call it a creative oversight . . . then there would be no further investigation.

  And the real source of Lucifer would never be found.

  He remembered the pilot who died in his arms, remembered swearing at the time that if it was the last thing he did, he would see the virus’ designer brought to justice. He hated Lucifer’s maker even more than he hated the Front, for the latter was just an offensive blot on his station space, while the former . . . the former had killed his people. People for whom he was personally responsible. That virus had snuck into Adamantine Node and attacked his outpilots right before his eyes. That was a deeply personal affront, and one that would not be forgotten.

  If he let the investigation end now, by causing the Guild to think that it had found the culprit ... then that affront would never be answered. Which enemy was worse? Which one was more of a threat to the Guild? Why had God dumped all this power in his lap, just to prevent him from using it?

  He stopped before the mirror and stared into it, eyes darting from point to point within the reflection. He knew what his duty was. He also knew what his heart demanded.

  Don’t call it conscience. Not if conscience isn’t enough. Call it ... vengeance.

  With a growl of resignation he called up a blank memo screen in his mind’s eye, and began to jot down instructions for his people.

  TANJI

  The tanji is not afraid. Fear is for creatures who are alone. The tanji is never alone.

  When it is weak, others will support it. When it is strong, it will support others. The ebb and flow of interdependence is as natural to it as the pulse of blood in its veins.

  Community is safety.

  Loneliness is fear.

  Isolation is death.

  KAJA: An Outworlder’s Guide to the Gueran Social Contract, Volume 2: Signs of the Soul

  INSHIP: EXETER

  EVERYTHING HAD CHANGED.

  Allo and Sumi and all the others still spoke to her politely, and even made what seemed like sincere attempts to be friendly, in between all the questions they asked her—most of which she couldn’t answer, some of which she wouldn’t answer—but it just didn’t ring true any more. Was that because something in them had really changed, or was she just less able to accept their efforts at face value? And if the latter, why?

  She knew when it had begun, of course. The minute Calia dug the probe out of her arm—the minute the words “Guild trace” were voiced in her cabin—some intangible, unnamable transformation seemed to have taken place in all of them. Her relationship with them had changed at that moment, but she couldn’t say how. The words were the same, the looks, all the subtle moves and gestures, but the emotions underlying those things had altered. And she lacked the social acumen to define just what was different, or even to understand how she knew it. One thing was very clear, however.

  She had to act. Soon.

  It was Derik who told her that first, his tone as always imperious and hostile. Then Verina agreed, adding validity to the thought. In the end even the child-Others agreed, making for a truly rare consensus of spirit. Only Zusu held back ... but Zusu was so afraid of the consequences of her actions that she preferred to huddle in a dark comer of their shared brain, lost in dread of what others would do to her. So she was hardly a fit counselor in matters like this.

  It was no longer enough to be reactive, the voices warned Jamisia. She had to move on her own now, analyze the situation, and determine how she was going to get control of it. She had already let the enemy drive her from her home, restrict her movement on the metroliner, and now she was letting it control her here as well. That had to stop.
That faceless, nameless corporate enemy whose shadow hung over her life like a pall would control her whole life if she let it, until such time as it demanded that very life in sacrifice. That mustn’t be allowed to happen.

  She had to take control.

  She had to do ... something.

  But what?

  It wasn’t an easy mental adjustment for her to make. In all of her life she had always been dependent upon others, and had been content to stay that way. First, for six years in a comfortable childhood with her parents, and then, when they died, with Shido Corporation. She’d been content to lead the life of a teenager in that indulgent environment, partying with the other young corporates and assuming that her company would always take care of her. Assuming that nothing ever would go wrong.

  Only it had. It had gone very wrong.

  And now she had to deal with that.

  She ordered the monitor to give her a silvered screen, which served as a functional, if somewhat hazy, mirror. In it, she studied herself. There was no longer any secret about why she had always seen faces in mirrors that were not her own; they crowded about her now, ghostlike in her mind’s eye. The phenomenon was still shocking, but it no longer horrified her. No, she thought, reaching out to touch the screen with a slender finger. I’m not alone. Surely with all those minds inside her, she could come up with some plan of action. Or at the very least, some plan of reaction that would let her take control of her life again. It was time for that, wasn’t it?

  Well past time, Derik agreed.

  Allo had said it would be a few days before they could make the skip. He wanted to make sure that the Guild’s trace was far, far away before he put himself—and Jamisia—into their hands. He’d told her how Tam had slipped the barbed trace into a tourist without her noticing, some heavyset woman from some hi-G world, out for a holiday. They’d stopped at one of the hotel stations for a while, and Tam had caught sight of her there. The Belial had talked to her briefly to ascertain her intentions—and her relative lack of intelligence—even while his twin hacked into her travel itinerary and confirmed her as a suitable stooge for their purposes. She was on her way to five different stations in Reijik Node, a leisurely tour of the health spas and tourist resorts for which the node was known. That was good. It meant that the trace and its current host wouldn’t wind up in Guild hands for at least an E-month, so it would be that long before anyone realized that the precious mechanism was now lodged in the wrong flesh. In the meantime the woman would flit her way from station to station in much the same way a fugitive would, making for a convincing profile in whatever computers were keeping watch.

  All of which meant that Jamisia was safe, for now.

  From the Guild, at least.

  She heard no hint of direct threat from the small ship’s crew, but she knew it was in the air. There were whispers she didn’t quite hear in the corridors, which hinted at trouble to come. Things were left unspoken when she entered a room, so pointedly she could not miss their absence. The crew of the ship spoke as many words to her as before, but those words carried less meaning. It was as though they were all marking time now. Waiting for ... what?

  Maybe there was an answer she needed to find. Or maybe ... maybe it was all her imagination. That was a very real possibility. What if these people meant her no harm, and it was merely the unease of some paranoid Other that was causing her to think otherwise? Their concerns did have a tendency to bleed into her consciousness, and not all of them were justified. The one who cried constantly was acutely paranoid, and every now and then when his mind touched hers, she cringed beneath the weight of its terror. Could he be responsible for her fears? Was she doing these people a disservice? How could she even know what she herself thought, in a world where the awareness of half a dozen pressed constantly against her brain?

  Don’t be an idiot, Derik growled. They’re planning something. Figure out what.

  In the end it was the sheer consensus of the Others that convinced her. In all the time she had known them, they had rarely agreed on anything. They did now. Something is wrong, an inner voice warned, and in her mind’s eye she could sense a dozen individuals nodding in sage agreement. No one argued, not even the children. That was damn convincing.

  Time to take control of my life, she thought grimly. And then added, before anyone else had a chance to correct her: My lives.

  She hoped it would be easier than it sounded.

  Tam came to her five hours before they were due to reach the outstation. He was a brusque little man who didn’t look at her often, and his fingers bristled with special tools that were worn like false fingernails on his slender, pale fingers.

  “Came to do your headset,” he told her. His eyes scanned the room, fixed on her briefly, then flitted away again. “For the ainniq. Get you ready.”

  She hesitated, then handed it to him, as she asked, “What are you doing, exactly?”

  “Programming.” The quick little fingers snapped open the housing of the headset, and tapped something glittering and crystalline within with a metal rod attached to his index finger. Whatever the headset did in response, it seemed to satisfy him. He snapped it shut again, put the contraption on his own head, and closed his eyes; she could see his eyeballs twitch back and forth as he scanned some internal vista. He seemed wholly unaware of her, lost within some internal computerscape. She waited silently. At last he took the crescent-shaped device from his head and handed it back to her. “All right, you’re ready to go.”

  She tried to keep the unease out of her voice as she asked him, “What did you do to it?”

  A brief hint of irritation passed across his face, and for a moment she saw his eyes unfocus, no doubt marking some internal conversation. Explaining to his twin that the difficult Earthie girl was keeping him longer than she should have, perhaps? “Programming downtime.”

  Raven nudged her mentally, and she asked, “Which means what?”

  He scowled. He had every right to. Any schoolchild should know what downtime meant, and be able to figure out why he was programming it into her headset. But Raven wanted to hear how he worded his answer, and Jamisia wasn’t in the mood to argue with her.

  “We’re going into the ainniq,” he told her. His tone was crisp, curt, not unlike the sharply defined voice of a public address computer. “We’ve got class C vessel status, which means we can stay on our own ship—they’ll tow it—but the Guild requires that all human passengers be either sedated or chilled during passage.”

  “Would they know if someone wasn’t?” she asked.

  He seemed startled by the question. “It’s rumored they have a program that will scan for beta waves on board. Maybe not. But would you want to take that chance? Considering that anyone who offends the Guild would be banned from the ainniq forever? That’s a pretty harsh punishment.” He shook his head; clearly he found the mere thought of such defiance incredible. “It’s not like you can see anything anyway. We’ll be completely enclosed during flight.”

  She tried to make her voice sound as naive as possible. “And what did you program for me, exactly?”

  “Theta-sleep. It’s the best choice by far, everyone but the Captain will do it. Sedation’s a pain to program, and it doesn’t clear out of your system all that fast.” His sharp eyes fixed on her with all the intensity of a predator. “Haven’t you ever been through an ainniq before?”

  “Once. From Earth to Reijik. I slept through it.”

  “Best way to go. Trust me. Most of the ships, everyone just goes under, easier that way. You need a special license to do otherwise.”

  “And Allo’s got that license?”

  He hesitated for only a fraction of an instant, then nodded. She was willing to bet the affirmation was at least half a lie. Had Allo stolen a license? Forged one? Two and two suddenly added up to four in her head, and she knew what it was that the ship’s crew did for a living. She’d have guessed it sooner if they hadn’t so carefully kept her away from their business, back when they
were unloading their cargo. Now, lots of little small hints suddenly snowballed into a very clear, very comprehensible picture.

  “Of course,” she murmured. Of course smugglers would have such a license. Of course they wouldn’t trust themselves to be put to sleep during Guild transport. She was willing to bet Allo wouldn’t really be sedated either, though she didn’t know how he’d slip that one by the Guild authorities. They seemed to be thorough in checking everything. “He has everything covered, doesn’t he?”

  She regretted the edge to her voice the minute she said the words, but he didn’t seem to notice it. “He tries to,” he agreed. “Anyway, it’s five hours to immersion by our current clock, so figure the last warning will come through about thirty minutes before that. You’ll need to have all your gear stowed for no-G by then, just for safety’s sake. Then lie down, strap in, tell your wellseeker to inload ... and before you know it we’ll be on Paradise.”

  He turned to leave, but she still had questions. “Why do they do it?” she asked him. “Why do they make us sleep? Are they so afraid we might ... what, exactly?”

  He turned back and stared at her; clearly amazed at the level of her ignorance. She could almost hear the words spoken aloud: Didn’t they teach you anything on Earth? “There are predators in the ainniq,” he said at last. “You know that much, right? Things that will rip your soul right out of your body and eat it for lunch.” She nodded. “Well, rumor has it they’re drawn to certain types of brain activity, in the same way that Terran sharks are drawn to blood. The Guild won’t confirm that, of course. They’re not about to tell us anything about what really happens out there.” For a moment hatred flashed in his eyes, undisguised by societal pleasantries. Like most Variants, he had no love for the Guild. “I’ve been told that the reason they put most of us in theta-sleep for passage is so that the dragons won’t hear us coming. Same thing with a sedation program. It doesn’t stop the brainwaves, but it skews them a bit. A kind of disguise.”