Through Alien Eyes tcod-2

by Amy Thomson

  Ukatonen got up early the next morning and killed a sloth. He and Eerin gorged themselves on the meat. Strengthened by the feast, they were able to work on Moki. It was clear that there was nothing they could do for his arm. Ukatonen took it off, with the help of a machete that Eerin had found in the truck and brought with her. He stopped the bleeding of Moki’s stump, and helped it heal over. It would be at least a week before Moki would be strong enough to travel. With patience and careful work, the bami’s arm would grow back in less than a year.

  Having done what he could for Moki, Ukatonen set off to bring Tomas back. The ants had found Tomas before he did. His body was covered with their bites. Ukatonen healed the bites and woke his captive up enough to make him walk. It was almost as much work as carrying him. He struggled against the fog of sedation that was the only way Ukatonen could control him. It was growing dark by the time they got to camp. He hauled his captive up to the nest, put him back to sleep, then collapsed in exhaustion.

  The next day, Ukatonen woke Tomas just enough to feed and clean him. As soon as he was conscious, Tomas began to struggle against the link, battering Ukatonen with his anger and hatred. Ukatonen wasn’t strong enough to control the man’s emotions. Finally, he rendered him unconscious and pulled out of the link. He sat there, looking down at his captive, his skin roiling with rusty red frustration.

  “What’s wrong, en?” Eerin asked.

  “He’s too angry. I can’t work with him, but”—he shook his head—“I can’t calm him down because of my injury. I have to understand why he’s angry, and try to address that.”

  “Sefu Tomas controlled hundreds of people directly, and millions more indirectly, through violence and fear,” Eerin told him. “Now he’s alone among enemies in the middle of the jungle. He’s angry because he’s lost everything. I don’t think you can fix that, en.”

  “But we have something in common.”

  “What do you mean, en?”

  “Coming to Earth, I too have lost everything. But,” he said, looking thoughtfully at the unconscious Tomas, “I did it voluntarily. It has been taken from him by force.”

  He ate and rested, thinking the situation over. Linking with Tomas was like trying to tame a trapped predator.

  He sat up. Yes, that was it. He needed to treat Tomas like a wild animal he was trying to tame. It would be much harder because of his injury, but if he proceeded slowly, it just might work.

  He linked with Tomas, slowly letting him come to a dreamlike awareness. At first Tomas paced the cage of his mind, searching for a way out, but eventually he became bored and unwary. Then Ukatonen fed calmness into the link. It took hours of painstaking work, instead of the few minutes it would have taken before his injury, but eventually he managed to get Tomas to relax. Gently, slowly, Ukatonen coaxed him into a deep trance. When he was too relaxed to lie, Ukatonen began interrogating him.

  Juna half-listened to Ukatonen’s interrogation of Tomas. Moki slept deeply, curled against her for warmth. She was hot, sticky, and bored. The insect repellent Ukatonen had synthesized for them was wearing off, and the bugs were starting to bother her. The slim black shape of Tomas’s comm unit caught her eye. She flipped it open and turned it on. Once again, the familiar opening screen requesting the password came up.

  “Hey, Ukatonen, ask Tomas what the password is for his computer.”

  Ukatonen did so.

  “It’s Rimel Moman Jarvi,” Tomas droned obligingly. He repeated the words twice more.

  Juna’s lips pursed in disapproval; two of the words in the password phrase were the names of notorious Birth-Right terrorists. But after he had spoken the password, there was a chime and the screen changed to reveal the file finder program. Juna typed in her last name, and did a search on it. There were about two dozen files mentioning her name. But at the end of the list was another file: Mariam Saari Fortunati. Juna swore softly in Amharic. She read through the file, and her eyes grew wider.

  “What is it, Eerin?” Ukatonen asked.

  “They were considering kidnapping Mariam,” Juna told him. “And they were going to use Bruce to do it.”

  “That’s very bad,” the enkar said.

  Juna continued to scan the file. “Apparently, Bruce contacted the BirthRight movement about taking Mariam. He gave them all kinds of information about us.”

  “Why, en? Why would he do it?” Juna demanded.

  “I don’t know, Eerin. Why don’t you keep looking, and see if you can find anything else?”

  Juna continued searching through the files, while Ukatonen returned to his slow, painstaking questioning of Tomas. She was reading through the files on herself when she came across General Burnham’s name. She searched for more information, and found it. Apparently Burnham’s office had supplied their kidnappers with vital intelligence about their schedule and security arrangements. They had overridden several attempts by the Survey to increase their security escort. Although none of the information implicated Burnham directly, it was damning enough to end the general’s career.

  Juna’s eyes were sandy with fatigue by the time she reset the password, and shut down the computer. There was enough information on this comp to shut down most of the BirthRight network. There were names, addresses, and organizational charts for the networks on Earth and Mars. She closed the cover with a smile. It had been a most productive afternoon.

  Ukatonen sat back and considered what he knew after two days of interrogation. Sefu Tomas grew up in the movement’s most radical fringe. His parents took him to BirthRight rallies when he was still a baby. He played under the dining room table with his younger brothers while his father and other leaders of the movement discussed contraceptive reversal techniques, and plotted bombings of Pop Con offices.

  He was thirteen when his family were exiled to Mars for population violations. As the eldest, he was allowed to stay behind in the care of relatives. He lived with an uncle for two months, before running away. He was taken in by the leader of the BirthRight movement, and trained as an elite smuggler and spy. By the age of fourteen he was smuggling anticontraceptives and fertility drugs around the world. His youth was the perfect cover. He killed his first man before he turned sixteen.

  At seventeen Tomas married the leader’s youngest daughter, and became a father before he turned eighteen. By twenty, he commanded several terrorist cells. When he turned thirty, Tomas was designated the leader’s official heir. He took over the leadership of the radical wing of the BirthRight movement four years later.

  But those were just facts. Ukatonen still didn’t understand what moved Tomas. How could he kill so easily, and without apparent thought? What was the source of that anger that Tomas kept bottled up inside himself? Could Ukatonen extinguish that anger, and bring Tomas into harmony with the rest of his world?

  Eerin shook her head when Ukatonen asked her this.

  “En, we’ve been trying to find a way to do that for centuries. Every person is different. We carry scars in different places on our hearts. For me, it was the death of my mother. For Tomas? Who knows? His father perhaps. Or the arrest of his parents. Or it could be none of those.”

  “How do I find out?” Ukatonen said.

  “Why don’t you just ask him?”

  Ukatonen darkened with frustration. “I did. But right now he is angry at us.”

  ’Then ask him to be a child again, and find out what he is angry at when he’s a child,” Eerin suggested.

  Ukatonen stopped and stared at her.

  “Thank you, Eerin, I would not have thought of that.”

  He kept forgetting how crucial a human’s childhood was to their eventual development. One chose a bami based on their personality. The willing, honest, and hard-working juvenile tinkas were adopted. SuHen, angry ones were not. Once a tinka became a bami, it was merely a matter of shaping that personality to fit the needs of the village. With humans, a great deal more depended on their childhood.

  Patiently, Ukatonen guided Tomas back into his memor
ies of childhood. After several attempts, he managed to make Tomas believe he was a child again. Finally, he was regressed to the age of four; Tomas’s whole demeanor and posture changed. The lines left his face; he seemed younger, happier. Ukatonen’s eyes flicked to Eerin. She nodded. She had seen the change too.

  Slowly, Ukatonen eased him forward in time, until his face began to change. Then he took Tomas back, embedding him in that moment of terror and anger, and plunged into the link.

  It was like being tumbled into a rapid at flood time. Ukatonen was caught in a maelstrom of powerful emotions that was much more dangerous than anything intentional that Tomas could have thrown at him. He struggled to maintain his equilibrium in the midst of the turmoil. He was powerless to do anything to calm Tomas. Finally he struggled out of the link.

  He sat for a moment, stunned. Then, pulling himself out of his daze, he looked at Eerin and Moki.

  I need your help,” he said, holding out his arms, deep [[-r~: wn]] with shame. “He’s too strong for me. I can’t calm.

  “Rest and eat, en,” Eerin said. “I found some bees; here’s honey and honeycomb.”

  “A moment only,” Ukatonen told her. “He is in pain, [[r!‹d ]]we must stop it.”

  “After all he and his men have done to us, en, I don’t rally care,” Eerin declared.

  Ukatonen was shocked. “But, Eerin— ” Ukatonen, we’ve been sitting here for eight days while you mess around with him.” She gestured contemptuously it Tomas. “My family’s got to be worried sick. I want to £0 home!”

  Ukatonen laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Eerin. I’ve been so absorbed with Tomas that I didn’t think about that. We’ll leave first thing tomorrow. I promise.”

  “And him?” she asked, gesturing again at Tomas.

  “He will come with us. But you must set aside your anger now, and help me end his pain. Unless we do that we cannot bring him into harmony with us.”

  Eerin looked down. “I’m not sure that I can, en. I’m too angry about all of the things he has done to us.”

  Ukatonen touched her shoulder and she looked back up at him. “I did not say that you must forget what he has done, or how angry it has made you, but for now, you must let it go for long enough to help him. Moki and I can help you shed your anger if you will let us.”

  Eerin was silent for a long moment; then she nodded and held out her arms. “All right, en.”

  They linked. Moki helped Ukatonen smooth away Eerin’s anger. Then they turned to Tomas.

  The emotional storm had exhausted Tomas, and they were able to slow the raging turmoil. Ukatonen pulled partway out of the link, and talked Tomas through his pain, monitoring and quietly reinforcing calmness, happiness, peace, and a sense of forgiveness. Tomas slid into a sweet, peaceful dream state. Then Ukatonen reached into Tomas’s brain and smoothed away the pathways that led to that anger and violence.

  Tomas woke about an hour later. He stretched, and there was a relaxed, almost sweet smile on his face. He opened his eyes, and tensed in fear. It saddened Ukatonen to see the lines reappear in the man’s face.

  “Good morning,” Eerin said. “Or rather, good afternoon.”

  He looked around. “Where am I?”

  “In the middle of the jungle,” Eerin told him. “We’re not exactly sure which jungle, though. Are you hungry?”

  Tomas nodded. “What did you do to me?” he asked. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “About eight days,” Ukatonen replied. “How do you feel?”

  “Different,” he said. “Better. What happened?”

  “We escaped, and took you with us,” Ukatonen told him. “I needed to understand you. Your cancer is almost gone, by the way.”

  “I see. And my men? My wife and family? Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Ukatonen replied. “We put everyone to sleep in the building you were in. Unless something else happened, they should be all right.”

  Tomas hung his head in silence for a few moments, his brow furrowed as though he was puzzled.

  “I should be angry with you. No, wait, I am angry with you, but it”—he hesitated—“it’s different somehow. What did you do to me?”

  “We helped you forget how to be angry,” Ukatonen explained.

  He sat silent for a few moments, looking inward. “Yes, you have. But it was my anger— Who gave you the right to take it away?” His voice was mild, despite his words.

  “Who gave you the right to kidnap us?” Eerin asked.

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”

  “None of us do,” Ukatonen said. “Even after all the work I have done on you, I still don’t understand why you have killed so many people.”

  “I believe that it’s wrong to tell me how many children I can have.”

  “But if we keep having children, humanity itself will die,” Eerin told him.

  “And if the state had decided that you couldn’t have your daughter. What then?” Tomas shot back.

  “I don’t know,” Eerin admitted. “It would have been terrible. I can’t imagine life without Mariam now.”

  “And how is that different from us?” he asked. “We love children. We want to have a lot of them.”

  “I would have given up having a child,” Eerin explained. “But your argument doesn’t apply. I was buying a child-right that someone wished to sell. I am not exceeding the population goals. Yes, we restrict the right to have a child, but it is restricted equally for everyone.”

  “And what about this place?” Ukatonen asked. “Would you have so many children that this forest would be destroyed to feed them? Is it worth the death of a beautiful, living planet to have as many children as you wish?”

  “The government has no right to tell us how many children to have,” Tomas argued.

  “You’re right. It isn’t fair, but it’s necessary. But you have a choice. You can emigrate to Mars, if you want to have more children,” Eerin pointed out.

  “It’s sterile and cold. You have to pay to breathe there.”

  “At least you have a choice, even if it’s a hard one. Someday we’ll have Terra Nova, and room to expand.”

  “In two hundred years’ time. What good is that to me? Or to my children and grandchildren and their children?”

  “None,” Eerin allowed. “But it’s possible that the Tendu could help us shorten the terraforming. Or give us the ability to adapt to a living world. You have no idea of what humanity risked losing when you kidnapped us. It was stupid, short-term thinking.”

  Ukatonen held up his hands. “That’s enough,” he said. “We will not achieve harmony by arguing.”

  “Then how will we achieve it?” Moki asked.

  “By understanding,” Ukatonen told him.

  “We understand each other,” Tomas said. “We understand each other quite well. But we believe very different things. The two beliefs are diametrically opposed to each other. They do not harmonize. It is impossible.”

  Ukatonen sat up straight, ears wide, amazed by Tomas’s rigidity.

  “How can you not want to reach harmony?” he asked. “Is it not the goal of all things to want to reach equilibrium with the world around them?”

  “I don’t want to accept what is,” Tomas said. “I’m fighting to make the world into what I want it to be.”

  “How can you deny the nature of the world?” Ukatonen asked.

  “Perhaps the nature of the world is not as you think it is,” Tomas replied. “Perhaps the world you see is an illusion built of your own beliefs. Perhaps belief can alter the nature of the world.”

  Ukatonen listened in astonishment. “How can you believe this?” he questioned.

  “Because humans have always changed the world,” Tomas said. “It’s what we do.”

  Ukatonen looked at Eerin, who nodded.

  “We have changed our world,” Eerin admitted, “but not always wisely or well. Usually we changed the world in response to short-term interests. Greed, if you will. But
sometimes we have done so for a greater purpose. We did it to save lives, or to further a religious belief. Many people sacrificed their lives for causes that they believed in. Many others were killed because they would not believe what others wanted them to. Sometimes the attempt worked, lives were saved, wars averted, but just as often people died, or became slaves of one sort or another.”

  Ukatonen listened in disbelief. Even Eerin felt this way. It was as though he had opened the door to another world. How strange to look at the world as humans did, as a thing to fight against, to alter, as though it were made of clay and could be molded without consequences. This sudden glimpse of human nature frightened him more than the casual brutality his captors had shown them, more than the ravages humans had inflicted on their planet’s ecosystem, and even more than the fear he had felt as he saw his planet dwindle into an insignificant speck in an immense and starry sky. He felt as though the world itself had turned upside down, and suddenly nothing made any sense at all.

  “I think I shall go hunting,” Ukatonen told them. “Will you be all right here?”

  Eerin said they would, and the enkar swung off into the trees, lost in thought. Human ideas burned in his head like live coals. What if the Tendu kept trying to change their world? What would Tiangi be like? He paused in mid-swing, and hung swaying from the branch he was on, to think it over. Would we have cities and streets and huge buildings! Would we live as out of balance as the humans! The idea made him uneasy. No, not on Tiangi, never. But if he could change Tiangi, what would he change?

  Very little, seemed to be the answer at first. But then, as he resumed swinging through the trees, the idea returned, niggling at him like some annoying insect. He thought of the villages, mired in tradition, of how hard it had become to find promising elders who wished to become enkar. He only knew a handful of enkar under seven hundred years old, and most of those were ones he had taught.