This Alien Shore

by C. S. Friedman

  “The outpilot will be awake,” she offered. “He has to be, to steer the ship. Right?”

  “Yes,” he told her. “And maybe that’s why not all ships make it through.” The hostility in his eyes subsided, but it clearly took effort. “This is all just rumor, you understand. The Guild isn’t about to let us share their precious secrets. All we know is that they can get a ship through the ainniq uninjured and no one else can. What else really matters? They say sleep, so we sleep.” He shut his eyes for a second, apparently to consult his timekeeper. “Immersion at 0728 Standard Time,” he told her. “Just be sure you’re running the program by then, okay?”

  He looked at her then—really looked at her, not past or through her like he usually did—and it seemed to hit him just how unnerving his little speech had been. His eyes unfocused for a minute as he indulged in some internal dialog, then he said, “Look, the program will rouse you within an hour after passage. There’s nothing to worry about. Really.”

  Nothing to worry about.

  The words were cold comfort. Even as the door slid shut behind him, a half dozen voices inside her head were whispering warnings of where the danger in this plan might lie, describing the various things that Allo and the Guild might do to her while she was chilled and helpless. Her hand trembling slightly, she picked up the headset. Was there something else in there now, besides the program he had told her about? How would she ever know? Raven knew more programming than any of them, and even she was no expert. How could she analyze what Tam had done, much less alter it? Her fingers closed about the thin plastic band, and a cold fear began to take root in her heart. She was in over her head here. All the voices crowding inside her head couldn’t give her access to impossible skills. She knew from things she’d overheard that Tam was the kind of programmer accustomed to breaking the rules. Could a normal person even figure out what he’d done to her equipment, much less undo it? The fear became a chill despair that clutched her heart like a fist, and her hand spasmed tightly about the headset as if crushing it would solve all her problems. Within her soul she could feel one of the Others rising up, consciousness reaching toward the surface like a desperate swimmer struggling for air . . . Zusu? No, she begged, no, no, not now, I need to think this through, just let me do it, please.

  And then there was something else. A presence like fire that exploded through the many layers of her consciousness, butting aside the Others that got in its way. Zusu took one look at it and fled in terror; Jamisia wished she could do the same. In all her time with the Others, she had never seen one in such a rage. So alien was the newcomer’s fury, so mindnumbingly intense, that not until he took direct control of her senses did she even realize who it was.

  “Fuck all this shit!” Derik snarled. The rage was like a whirlwind inside him, a storm of frustration and anger that was directed at all of them. “Is this what you call action? This bullshit? I’ll show you action!”

  In horror Jamisia watched as her own hand took the headset and threw it down onto the floor, hard. The plastic frame hit the floor with a sickening sound and then bounced some feet up, its resilient surface and the lo-G of the ship combining with the force of Derik’s pitch to give it almost ludicrous flight. Then it settled back down to the floor, and he slammed his foot down on it, hard, crushing the delicate components—

  No!!! She surfaced and took control of the body again, to stop him. Or tried to. But his mental grip on it was more than secure, and he had no intention of relinquishing control. “Stay out of this!” he snarled. “I’m doing what has to be done!” He ground his foot, intending to crush the headset, but she’d pulled him off balance enough that he missed it by inches. With a muttered curse he threw her off and struck out at the instrument again. But this time Jamisia wasn’t alone in her efforts to stop him. Verina was helping her, and Raven, and after a moment even Katlyn and Zusu joined in. They’d never tried to control the body together before, least of all against the might of one of their own kind. And damn, he was strong! With all that fury unleashed, he was stronger than the rest of them put together. But that was his nature, after all. He was the one who had raged in fury when the doctors fed hurtful memories into Jamisia’s brain; his was the role of avenger, protector. And he had never been released to vent his indignation, not at a time when it would do any good ... until now.

  Derik! It was Verina, the voice of reason. Don’t be an idiot! If you break the headset they’ll know we’ve caught on, don’t you see?

  He hesitated. In the sudden silence, Zusu whimpered, I don’t want to go into the ainniq without the headset—

  Shut up! half a dozen voices told her.

  Derik?

  He could scarcely see through all the wellseeker messages in his field of vision. He flashed the goddamn thing to shut down and didn’t answer anyone till the last red warning was gone. “Yeah?”

  First, don’t talk out loud. You know we’re probably being watched. Keep it internal.

  He drew in a deep breath. The force of his rage still boiled inside him; Jamisia kept a careful distance between him and her, afraid that she’d get sucked into it. Zusu cowered, terrified.

  Derik ...

  Yeah. God, he hated to admit when one of the others was right. Damn girls! With a growl he put his foot down on the ground, a good three inches from where the headset now lay. He could sense them all inside him, tense, ready to fight with him again if he tried to do something stupid. Damn them all!

  Okay. It was Verina, as always the voice of reason. Now listen to me. We won’t wear the headset if you’re that set against it. Okay? But if you break it to pieces, they may know—we don’t know what they have linked to it—and certainly they’ll see it, if they stop in later. All right? So just let

  it be. When a minute went by and he didn’t answer she prodded gently, Derik?

  Yeah, he growled. I got it.

  Zusu began to cry. So did one of the children, and then another. The combination of their tears and Derik’s rage and her own fear was sickening, and Jamisia knew that if the body had been in her control at that moment she’d be sure to vomit.

  Look, Derik said sternly. It was clear he was struggling not to speak aloud; silence didn’t come naturally to him. I won’t do anything more to the headset, okay? But we’re not putting it on for transit, or for anything else. Fuck those bastards! God knows what they did to it. So screw this concept of taking a nap, we’re doing the dive with eyes open and that’s all there is to it! Got that, girls?

  There was silence. Dissension was considered, then left unvoiced. There were doubts, of course, in all of them. He ignored them.

  At last one of the children murmured, What about the dragons, Derik?

  Dragons be damned, he retorted. If they get us, at least we go down clean.

  They eat souls—one of the others began.

  With a cry of frustration he threw the headset against the nearest wall. It rattled as it bounced off onto the bed, as if something inside it had broken loose. Fuck the dragons, fuck this ship, fuck everyone and everything that’s on it! You said you wanted to do something, right? No more sitting back and waiting for other people to take control of our lives. Right? RIGHT?

  A second passed. A few voices, hesitant, whispered confirmation.

  All right, then. So I’m taking control. If one of you feels more qualified to do that, you can fight me for it. I’m sick and tired of listening to all of you bitch, you understand? So I’m in charge now, and you all can just deal. Is that clear?

  This time several seconds passed before there was confirmation. When it came, it was hesitant, tentative. It was clear the others weren’t all that happy about what he had done ... and equally clear that they didn’t want to take over themselves. Even Jamisia found a strange comfort in his fury, as if he were voicing emotions she herself had been keeping bottled up for too long. Yes, it was all right if he took over for a while. It was a relief, in a way. He scared the hell out of her and she didn’t trust his judgment, but Veri
na would surely ride herd on him, and in the meantime....

  In the meantime she could rest. Relax. Shut down. Wasn’t that what the others did sometimes, when there was something they didn’t want to be involved in? It would be nice not to have to worry for a while, or deal with anyone else’s worries. How did they do it? Verina had explained once. Something about letting go, so that the sensory feed ceased and there was only mental input ... a kind of sleep, she’d said. Sometimes you needed that, when a dozen voices were in your head all the time.

  Here, a gentle voice whispered. I’ll show you.

  Take her by the hand. Follow her into darkness.

  Peace.

  There was a knock on the door just as Derik was buttoning up his jumpsuit. Startled, he fumbled for a moment, then gritted his teeth and forced the small plastic disk through its hole. It wouldn’t do to have anyone see him when he wasn’t fully dressed; that would spoil everything. “Come in,” he muttered.

  It was Sumi.

  Derik, you want one of us to—

  Fuck off, he told them. All of them. He managed a smile for Sumi, while thinking to the Others, and thanks for the show of confidence.

  “We’re approaching the outstation now,” Sumi told him. “I came to see if everything was okay.”

  He saw the Medusan looking over his body and he sat down on the edge of the bed; there was less to see, that way. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “Anything you need?”

  “No.” When that didn’t seem to be enough, he turned his smile up a few degrees of warmth and assured him, “Really.”

  Derik, you’re missing signals here. It was Katlyn. Maybe I should help.

  He kept the smile on his face, and sent her a firm denial. He was damned if he’d be sharing his bodytime with a girl. Any girl. Besides, what was Kat going to do? Get this guy so worked up that he tried to make physical contact? What then? There’s too much at stake here to play games, he snapped at her. Let me handle this.

  “All right, then.” For a moment Sumi just looked at her—trying to define the change in her manner, perhaps, trying to come to terms with it?—and then he nodded toward the headset that sat beside her. “Immersion in thirty. You’d better put that on.”

  From somewhere he dredged up his best charming smile, and picked up the headset. “Thanks.” Then he cast his eyes demurely down, trying to look embarrassed. “Sumi, I’m a little bit tense is all. After the dive I’ll be okay. . . .” He left him to fill in the rest.

  “That’s all right.” He seemed to relax a bit. Whatever he had come for, now his job was done. Derik could imagine the captain’s orders to him: Get her in the fucking headset, whatever it takes. Make sure she wears it.

  No, he wouldn’t have said that. Only an idiot would go into the ainniq unchilled and unsedated, endangering them all. And the Earthie girl wasn’t that stupid. Right?

  One of the children snickered.

  Sumi waited until she had put the headset on her head (so maybe that was it, after all) and then nodded his leavetaking and left him alone.

  Not alone, Derik thought with satisfaction. Never alone.

  Raven was still sorting through the files he’d inloaded from the ship’s library. She had her own section of brainware to do it in, so it wasn’t bothering anybody. Verina and Katlyn were holed up with some viddie of life on Paradise; he could see its ghostly images flicker in his field of vision, a necessary annoyance. Even the kind of brainware they carried didn’t have totally separate visual tracks for everyone. Still, after years of playing hide-and-seek with each other in Jamisia’s brain, they had pretty much learned to tune each other out. He did so now, ignoring the half-dozen efforts going on inside his head which, hopefully, would lead them all to safety when they finally got off this ship.

  With a sigh he visualized the icons that would make sure his brain accepted no input for the next few hours, not from the headset and not from anywhere else. Raven had showed him how to disconnect its processor—it still worked despite his abuse of the instrument, though not well—but even so, this was not a time to take chances. His gut feeling was that some kind of trap had been set when Tam played with the thing, and he was damned if he’d give it half a chance to work.

  The dragons will find us, a child whispered. They’ll eat us.

  He ignored that.

  When the time came, he lay down on the bed and pulled the straps across his body, fitting them into place. Ankles first, then knees, then a pair across his torso. They withdrew slightly after he snapped them shut, tightening across his body. Like he was going to fall out of bed without their help, or something. The things he’d stuffed into his pockets dug into his body from all angles, and he had to squirm around a bit to get the pair of shoes in his thigh pocket aligned so they didn’t dig into his leg.

  Sumi hadn’t noticed all those bulges, had he? Derik hoped to hell not. That would ruin everything. God damn those straps....

  Jamisia shot him a picture of the thing they’d put her in the first time she’d gone through an ainniq, a kind of padded cocoon. Also of the bruises on her body afterward, and the ones she’d seen on other people.

  He shrugged.

  It was just him, then, him and this female body with its fearfully pounding heart. The wellseeker begged him to let it adjust something, anything, and at last he let it put the reins on his pulse, and neutralize some of the adrenaline pouring into his system. He’d need that back later, but right now all it was doing was making him restless. But the minute these straps come off, you quit all that. He made sure it understood that instruction, then tried to relax. But it was impossible. So much was riding on this little gambit, and the risk involved in trying it was so very great. What if the creatures who lived in the ainniq really could smell human thoughts, or hear them, or whatever? He knew that in the past manned ships had sometimes come back into safespace with the crew all dead. It didn’t happen a lot anymore, but the odds were still there that it might. What if his little game skewed the odds enough to turn this into a doomed flight?

  Shit. He called up a few drops of sedative to still his nerves. It bothered him, how much this was getting to him. The girls got scared like this often enough, that’s how they were, but him? Fine example he was setting.

  Then he felt the ship shudder, and a sound that was not quite a sound reverberated along his nerve endings. Something had grabbed hold of the vessel, he guessed, and was now dragging it along into the belly of a Guild transport. If that were the case, then everyone else on board would be asleep by now, or pretty heavily out of it. He wondered just how alert Allo was, and if he’d bother to check on the headset readings of his passenger. Probably not. He had enough things to worry about on his own ... like two hours of having his life in the hands of a Guild he hated, who’d probably arrest him on the spot if they knew even half of what his business was about.

  The Guild wants us, someone whispered. Why?

  Time enough to find that out later, he told her. On Paradise.

  The ship shuddered again, and this time he could hear something straining against its surface, a low squeal that made his skin crawl. He slid his arms beneath the straps and waited. There were clangs in the distance, which he felt more than heard, and he almost thought there were human voices. Were the Guildfolk that close to the ship, or was he catching the echoes of some kind of public address system? It must have been from something in contact with the hull, he realized, for the compartment Allo’s ship was in would have no air in it. No point in air. If they got into trouble while in transit, then no mere evacuation could save them. You either lived or died in the ainniq, period; there was no middle ground.

  Better to sleep through that kind of death, he thought grimly.

  There was a long time of silence, then, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach he realized that they were all set to go. MORE SEDATIVE? the wellseeker queried. He told it to go fuck itself. Enough was enough. He needed to have his head free and clear when they got to Paradise,
enough so that he could beat out Allo if he had to. And if that meant riding out this thing with his heart beating bruises against the inside of his rib cage, so be it.

  The ship jerked.

  He caught his breath.

  It started to move forward. The sensation was weird, not the kind of thing you usually felt in space travel. If the vessel had been moving on its own, it would have had its own G-web up to compensate for such things, which didn’t mean that you wouldn’t feel the acceleration, but it would have been ... well, different, somehow. This was kind of like what you felt on Earth, where all the gravity was natural. Or so Jamisia told him. She was the only one who remembered that sensation.

  He felt a cold knot form in the pit of his stomach as the ship moved forward toward the ainniq. Would he know when they entered it? Would he sense the dragons, as it was said they could sense him? Panic started to well up inside him at the thought of lying there, strapped down, while the universe’s most deadly predators homed in on him, but he refused to let his wellseeker do anything about it; finally, when it insisted once too often, he shut it down. It wasn’t a question of safety, any more, or even common sense, but of sheer masculine pride. He could hardly bitch at the girls for their cowardice and then act like a baby himself, now, could he? He gritted his teeth as the ship jerked again, and he felt a faint queasiness stir in his gut at the wrongness of that motion. Safespace shouldn’t feel like this....

  Passage took an eternity.

  Yes, he was sure he could sense things outside the ship: hungry, circling. Maybe it was just his imagination, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Worst of all, he could feel every lurch of the small vessel as its outpilot pulled it into one evasive configuration after another. Once he even felt something touch his soul—or so he thought—something colder than the deepest reaches of space, something so horrific that his skin crawled where it brushed against him. He thought for that one moment that he was surely gone, that he had taken one chance too many and was about to pay the price for it. But then the moment was gone, as quickly as it had come. Was that really some life-form of the ainniq, or just his overheated imagination? Sweat was running down from his face in rivulets, pooling on the synthetic mattress beneath him. What if you went into the ainniq awake, and the sheer terror of it drove you insane? Was that why everyone had to be sedated? Was that why no one was allowed to go through this journey with all his senses online? The ship jerked suddenly, so hard that the strap holding his left arm down cut cruelly into flesh. This was a mistake, someone wailed. Zusu? “Shut up!” he growled, as another wave of sickness welled up in his gut. Damn it to hell, they needed to be awake, they had to be awake, so they should just stop their bitching and deal with it. Another sickening lurch brought hot bile into his throat, and he swallowed back on it, hard. The ship would fly straight for as long as it could, so any time it didn’t meant that something was out there. Right? And a series of rapid adjustments of direction and speed, like he was feeling now, could only mean one thing....