EarthBound

by D M Arnold

  Suki looked away from him as he spoke. Tears ran down her face.

  “I love you. I've always loved you, and I'll never stop loving you. Remember that. No matter what Destiny has in store for you, and no matter how difficult your path appears, remember there's someone in the galaxy who loves you and who'll never stop loving you. Someone who'd be crushed to learn you succumbed to hopelessness. You need never abandon hope. Promise me you'll remember that.”

  “For the past three years, everyone and everything told me I was worthless,” she replied. “All I wanted was to make it on my own, and I couldn't do that. When I was told I was being fired ... I had just begun to believe I might make it on my own. That's why it hurt so much.”

  “I'm sure it had nothing to do with your qualifications or your performance. It was simply college politics. No one is immune from politics now and then.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Of course. I recognize politics when I see them. The new department head was probably making room for some crony.” He stroked her face. “Or, maybe a mistress.” She smiled. “Can you promise me you'll never try anything like that again?

  “I can't promise, Nykkyo. I promise I'll think of you.” She stroked away more tears. “You said to me what I wanted my father to say when I swallowed the aspirin.” She wept. “I just don't want to be alone!”

  “If you ever need help, contact me and I'll do what I can for you. That's my promise.” He brushed away more tears. “We might be separated, but we'll never be alone. There will be a way for us to be in touch.” He embraced her again. “I wish this pallet was wider. I'd lie with you and hold you.”

  “I'd like that,” she said.

  He held her and stroked her back until he felt her begin to calm. “It's late and I'd better go and get some rest. Aahhn and his staff will take good care of you.”

  She nodded. “I know they will. I'll be fine, I'm sure.”

  He kissed her lips. “Sleep tight. I'll see you in the morning.”

  “Nykkyo?” she said as he headed toward the door. He turned to face her. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Nyk approached his apartment and pressed his wrist to the scanpad. The door popped open. Senta appeared from the bedroom wearing a short, sleeveless robe. She was adjusting a ribbon she wore to control her unruly hair.

  “I'm sorry about last night,” she said. “You surprised me, that's all.”

  “I'm sorry, too,” he replied.

  She smiled at him. “You said you were saving your desire for when you're home on leave. Let's spend some tonight.” She walked to him, put her arms around his waist and looked into his eyes. “We have some drugs that might make tonight more... special.”

  “Please, Senta -- I'm exhausted and not...”

  “Aren't you happy to see me?” She stroked his bare arms and lay her face against his chest. Her eyes focused on his xarpa. “What's this?” she asked and plucked something from his sash. She looked at it carefully. “If I didn't know better, I'd say it's a hair. A long, black one, like the ones you brought for me to sequence.” She continued to examine it. “It is a hair. Here's the root.” She backed away from him. “That Earth woman's here. You brought an Earth person onworld. She's your special project! Nykkyo, how could you?”

  “She was hurt -- dying. I knew our doctors could save her.”

  “If she was dying you should've let her die.”

  “She's important to the founding of our world. If she died, there'd be no Koichi.”

  “How do you know that? How do you know Destiny wouldn't have found some other way? There's another reason. You love her, don't you?”

  Nyk looked at the floor. “Yes... a bit.”

  “More than a bit!” Senta's lower lip was trembling. “How did you convince Dad to permit this?”

  “Veska doesn't know. He thinks I brought an injured comm tech for treatment. We arrived via a diplomatic shuttle that didn't stop at the transit platform.”

  “You lied to my dad!”

  “I never lied to him. He asked me who was hurt, and I said someone on the relay station. Suki was on the station, so it wasn't a lie.”

  “You misled him, tricked him into bringing your Earth lover here!”

  “I saved a life. I'd have done it for a stranger.”

  “No, you wouldn't. You know you wouldn't.” She glowered at him. “Get out. Get out of my apartment.”

  “I have every right to be here.”

  “Get out!” she screamed and advanced toward him. Nyk backed away from her. She lifted her hand to strike him. He turned and pressed the actuator. The door opened and he dashed into the corridor. It slid shut and latched.

  He paced outside the apartment for a few moments then pressed his wrist to the scanpad. It read entry denied. He descended the lift to the tubecar platform, rode a tubecar back to the clinic and curled up for the night in a waiting room chair.

  * * *

  The clinic's morning bustle roused Nyk. His eyes were bleary from lack of decent sleep, his tongue felt fuzzy and he had a dull ringing in his ears. He went into the unisex restroom near the waiting area and purchased a single-use razor and some soap from a personal-care products vending machine, paying for it with a wristscan. He stood at a basin, lathered his face and began shaving his sparse beard.

  Aahhn walked in, stood at a urinal and hiked up the front of his tunic. “Good morning, Nykkyo. I saw you sleeping in the waiting room. Your friend's out of danger. You've no need to mount a vigil for her.”

  “Senta threw me out of the apartment last night.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She found one of Suki's hairs on my xarpa and put two and two together.”

  Aahhn stifled a chuckle. “I've known Senta a long time. She may be many things, but dim-witted isn't one of them.”

  “Certainly not,” Nyk replied.

  Aahhn stood beside Nyk to wash his hands. “We took Sukiko down for some scans, to make sure there isn't any other neurological damage we need to treat. It turns out one of our neural imaging techs served an Agency tour on Earth about ten years ago. He still knows the language and was quite helpful. Sukiko is a very pleasant woman. She's also quite a beautiful one, in a different way. How common is her ... configuration on Earth?”

  “Quite common,” Nyk replied. “There's amazing diversity on Earth, people of all shapes and colors. People with light skin, dark skin and every shade in between. One doesn't need much time there to realize how dull our world is in comparison. I love that planet.”

  “I can't believe her eyes,” Aahhn said.

  Nyk looked up at the ceiling. “Her eyes... I melt every time I gaze into her beautiful, dark eyes.”

  “Nykkyo, I think I'm seeing what Senta must've seen last night. How deeply are you involved with this girl?”

  “I love her more dearly than I've ever loved anyone. I love her more than life itself.”

  “I'm going to give you some advice as an old friend, Nykkyo. Once she's recovered, take her back to Earth. Then you must disengage from her. A continued relationship with her can have only one outcome, and that's heartbreak for both of you.”

  “My mind tells me I must do that, but my heart tells me something else.”

  “Break it off now, Nyk. It'll only be more difficult with time. Some day, you'll return to Floran for good, and you'll have to leave her behind.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe I'll go native. It's been done before.”

  “I can't believe I'm hearing you say that.”

  Nyk began washing the shaving detritus from his face. “Maybe I'll become an Agency career man.” He blotted his face on a fabric towel and tossed it into the laundry.

  “That would effectively end your marriage with Senta.”

  “That's if it's not effectively ended already.” Nyk tossed the spent razor into the waste reprocessor. “I do have options, Aahhn.”

  “We're transferring Sukiko to a convalescence room on the 50th floor,” Aahhn said. �
��I'll ride the lift with you. She should be finished with her tests by now.” Nyk pressed his palm against Aahhn's and they laced fingers. He and Aahhn headed, holding hands, toward the lift.

  Nyk followed Aahhn into Suki's room. He found her dozing on a pallet adjusted into a sitting position. She was dressed in a Floran tunic. Her room was spacious -- a sofa lined one wall and a low table sat before the sofa. A large window looked out on the city.

  Aahhn picked up a handheld vidisplay and began poking its touchscreen. “Her scans were negative. She'll make a full recovery. We can discharge her as soon as her blood volume's at least seventy-five percent her own. That'll be a few days, yet.”

  “Her color looks better.”

  “Yes, she's doing well -- better than I expected when I first saw her.”

  “What about her heart?”

  “Nothing's presented itself yet. She's a very lucky woman.” Aahhn turned the vidisplay toward Nyk. “I have the psychomedic's report. I shouldn't be divulging this to you, but you're the closest to immediate family she has here. Dr Krulla believes she's not despondent and not imminently suicidal. Remember, though, this is her second suicide attempt. It says she's not completely stable and she's prone to depression and anxiety. Her profile is consistent with someone who was sexually molested as a child.”

  “Oh, Aahhn -- I had no inkling.”

  “She also has self-abusive tendencies.”

  “How could Dr Krulla determine that? She never asked about it.”

  “Sukiko suffers, or suffered, from bulimia nervosa.”

  “Bulimia? What makes you think that?”

  “On the knuckle of her right middle finger are some marks -- some scars -- characteristic of a bulimic. They're made by the front teeth.” Aahhn made a gesture to imitate cramming his hand down his throat. “The marks aren't fresh, so we're assuming she's a recovered bulimic.

  Nyk looked down. “Suki never mentioned any of this to me...”

  “She should be encouraged to seek whatever counseling is available on Earth. She's fragile emotionally, Nyk. There's little we can do to help her here. Since she doesn't appear to be an immediate hazard to herself, we have psychomedical clearance to discharge her. That leaves the blood as the only obstacle to sending her home. Please make sure she gets help once she's there.”

  Nyk approached Suki and placed his hand on her forehead. “Good morning, stranger.”

  She opened her eyes. “Bon'matina.” He hugged and kissed her. “Nykkyo, everyone's been so sweet and so considerate. I knew you were the sweetest, gentlest person I ever met. Now I see where it comes from.

  “And look at this room. I've never seen a hospital room like this. It's more like a hotel.” She lifted the bedcover and swung her feet to the floor. He followed her to the window. “This city makes New York look like a small town. What's the population here?”

  “Around seven hundred fifty million.”

  “That's three times the population of the US! In one city!”

  “About half our total population live in Floran City.”

  “You tell me I'm a major figure leading up to the founding of all this. It's hard for me to believe, and it makes my petty concerns seem so self- absorbed.”

  “Destiny traces for each of us a path we must follow. Your path leads, ultimately, here.”

  “Then it was in your destiny to bring me here.”

  “No, I'm afraid not. I believe it's possible for some outside event to interfere with your destiny. I believe my friendship has so interfered with yours. Who knows what might be if I wasn't your friend?”

  “I'd still have been fired, and I still would've slit my wrists. Without you, I'd be dead.”

  “Are you sure? How do you know you wouldn't have ... sat with someone else instead of me at lunch -- a visiting professor who offered you a fine position at another university, and you'd welcome being fired because it freed you from an obligation you no longer wanted?”

  “I suppose that might have happened,” she said. “No one knows.”

  “Might-haves don't count,” he replied. “I shouldn't have made you my friend. I should've kept far from you, especially once I was sure you were... who you are. But it was too late -- I was already in love with you. I'm guilty of what we call temporal interference.

  “When I found you in your bathtub, I knew immediately I had to bring you here. Suki, I love you. Nonetheless, if I knew it was in your destiny to die like that, I'd have allowed you to die. But that's not how Destiny planned it. Not saving you would've caused a temporal paradox.”

  “Paradox?”

  “Yes. I caused your interference. You are important to our world, but you have yet to play your role. If I allowed you to die, you'd never play your role, and our world might not be. I might not exist -- I might never have existed. If I never existed, I couldn't cause the interference, and you'd survive and play your role. Don't you see? I had no choice but to bring you here and to have our doctors save you. No Earth doctor could've. The reanimation technology doesn't exist there.”

  An attendant inflated a cuff around Suki's bicep and drew a tube of tar- black fluid from a vein inside her elbow. “Denke,” the attendant said and headed for the door.

  “I see the needle go in, but there's no wound,” Suki said, stroking the inside of her elbow.

  “The needle's coated with healing salve. The wound closes instantly.” He stood and looked out the window. “I know what must happen. You've yet to fulfill your destiny. After you're discharged, I'll take you to Earth. Then, we must go our separate ways.”

  She joined him at the window. “No. I won't let you go.”

  “You must. I matter little in all this.”

  “You matter to me. I feel real, unconditional love with you, Nykkyo. You're the one I've been looking for my whole life. Now that I've found you, I'm not giving you up so easily.”

  “No, Suki. The stakes are far bigger than either of us. You're the one on the critical path, and I dare not interfere.” He slipped his arm around her. “I don't see the harm in us staying in touch, though -- as friends.”

  * * *

  Nyk sat with Suki on the sofa in her room. An attendant poked her head through the door. “Nykkyo?” She beckoned him.

  “Excuse me,” he said and stepped into the corridor.

  “Someone to speak with you,” the attendant said.

  Nyk turned and saw Senta. “Nykkyo, I've re-enabled your ID code at the apartment.”

  “You came here to tell me that?”

  “No. I also wanted to meet my rival. Would you be kind enough to make introductions?”

  “Step this way.” Nyk gestured Senta into Suki's room. “Suki, this is Senta -- my wife. Senta, xe Sukiko es.”

  “Saluti,” Senta said as she walked toward Suki. Suki extended her hand. Senta kept hers at her side as she regarded Suki from head to foot to head. She looked into Suki's eyes and at her face from several angles. She walked around her and looked into her face again. Senta proffered a faint smile and said, “Bon'taka.” She turned to Nyk. “Bon'taka, Nykkyo.” She headed out the door.

  “That was the most awkward moment I've had in many years,” Suki said. “I felt like a steer being judged at the state fair. I thought you said your wife's name was Cindy.”

  “That's her Earth name.”

  “I'd have believed Senta as a name.”

  “I didn't make it up. Our Earth identities are carefully engineered for us.”

  “Nykkyo, don't you think it'd be all right to tell me the truth about you? How much of the sad, sad story you told me was fact, and how much was fiction?”

  “None of it was a lie, exactly. I never wanted to deceive you, Suki. I was born in a small city on the coast, down south. The city's Sudal, population about a hundred thousand. I did grow up in a house on a bluff overlooking the sea. I flunked out of my first college. It's all my real life.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “My father was Food Service Ag Director. He had
plans for me to follow in his footsteps. I was to be fast-tracked through the organization. It was something that didn't interest me in the least. He and my mother were returning from a trip to one of the colonies. An inertial sink malfunctioned and their shuttle crashed into one of the agridomes north of Sudal. There were no survivors.”

  “And Senta?”

  “She's indeed an important person. Senta heads the sequencing labs that perform genetic analysis on all our food crops. She's the youngest ever to be named a full director of a branch of the Food Service -- a branch of her own invention.

  “She was finishing her degree as a microbiologist studying the genetic history of some species of lentils. She discovered in one of the species, somehow, alien genes had been introduced. Someone spliced genes from the castor bean into the genome for this lentil, inducing the production of the biotoxin ricin. A single lentil contained sufficient ricin to kill a man, and those lentils came very close to entering our food supply.” He shuddered. “If that had happened, people would've died by the millions. It was a weapon of mass destruction in a few strands of DNA.”

  “Who would do such a thing?”

  “We don't know for sure. The whole affair is known as the Ricin Plot. It happened about five years ago. There's evidence a faction on the Altia colony was involved -- strong enough evidence to revoke the colonial charter and put the colony under direct High Legislature control. Six people were hanged for their roles in the plot -- the first executions on this world in over twenty generations. Senta feels guilt for their deaths. They were convicted on the basis of her testimony. She's considered a hero for discovering the plot, though it was mostly dumb luck. The High Legislature awarded her the Chancellor's Medallion.

  “The Food Service asked her what could be done to prevent such an attack in the future, and she developed the sequencing labs. Now every crop undergoes careful genetic analysis prior to being planted in the agribeds. Senta approves each one personally. Now, she's too important and far too busy to pay much attention to me. I realize our marriage was a mistake.”