Alien Child (5 page)

“But they did,” Beate said. “They enjoyed it very much, Nita. It was a way to show love and to share that love with another.”

“Love,” Llipel murmured. “It is another of your strong words.”

“In fact,” Beate continued, “some people had contraceptive implants so that they could share love without the possibility of a child. There is a room in the tower where such implants can be found for both men and women, so that each partner can decide when he or she is ready to become a father or mother. The screen can show you how to embed such an implant under the skin of your arm—it’s really very simple.”

Nita shuddered. Llipel was studying her, as if trying to see how Nita was reacting to all of this. “You do not want such closeness now,” her guardian said.

Nita shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t matter even if I did.”

Llipel’s dark eyes widened a little. “Perhaps it was not time for you to hear about all of this.”

Repulsed as Nita had felt at hearing Beate’s talk, she was later unable to put it out of her mind. At times, she could even long to feel the arms of one of her own people around her.

It was pointless for her to have this changing body, to feel such odd and disturbing urges. She had thought that such feelings meant that a time for togetherness was approaching, but for Llipel, togetherness seemed to mean a time for communication and companionship, not a time to share what Beate called love. Llipel had worried that the changes coming to Nita might make her ill, but Beate had put those worries to rest. Nita could not bring herself to discuss her longings with Llipel, who would find them difficult to understand. These new feelings were another quality that made her think something was wrong with her.

She would have no young unless her people returned to the Institute. No man lived to provide her with seed; there would be no small one of her own kind to raise. Beate and Ismail had told her that not all of their people had chosen to have young. She might have become resigned to that if there had been a companion for her, someone to ease the loneliness that even her guardian and her cat could not dispel.

These thoughts had overwhelmed Nita during the celebration marking her fifteenth year. She found herself raging at Llipel for giving her life and then condemning her to this lonely existence. Llipel had watched her silently before going off to speak with Llare over a screen. Nita had grown even angrier at that. Llipel reacted that way too often lately, listening as Nita berated her, then going off for yet another conversation with Llare. Perhaps Llipel’s time for togetherness with her old companion was approaching.

She stood up. Llare might be waiting for Nita to approach her first; perhaps opening the door was meant as a sign that Nita would be welcome in that wing.

She left the cafeteria and rounded the corner. Her cat was prowling in the hall near the exit; as the door opened, the animal darted into the garden just ahead of her. Nita took a breath as the door closed, wondering if Llare had seen her and was waiting.

The cat rubbed against her legs. The furry creature was a female; the screens had told her that fact. “Dusky.” She crooned the name as she leaned over to scratch the cat behind the ears; Dusky often seemed as restless as she. Maybe Dusky was lonely, too.

She crept through the darkness. The sky was clear, the moon a thin crescent in the sky. Once she had shied away from entering the garden at night, had felt uneasy in a place where she could not summon light with a few words to a screen, but now she could welcome the darkness and imagine that the shadows cloaked other people.

The path’s flat tiles were smooth against her bare feet. She shivered in the cool night air and wished she had put on one of the white coats or blue coveralls that were the only clothing she had ever found in the east wing. She kept near the trees along the path until she was only a few paces from the door.

“Llare?” she called out tentatively. Llare might be hoping for companionship now; she might even allow Nita to use the library in her wing.

The door began to slide open. She held her breath. As the opening widened, Dusky suddenly bounded past her and scampered toward the light. Nita leaped after the cat, stubbed her toe, and cried out harshly at the pain. The opening narrowed; Dusky ran into the hallway just before the door closed behind her.

Nita stumbled toward the door. “Llare!” she shouted as she struck the door with her fist. “Open the door! Give me back my cat!” She pounded the door again, certain that Llare could hear her. “Open this door!”

She waited, trying to calm herself. “Listen to me. I know you can understand. I won’t come in if you don’t want me to. Just open the door and put Dusky back outside, please.” Her anger rose; Dusky was her cat, not Llare’s. “Open this door!” she cried. “Give her back right now, or you’ll be sorry!”

She steadied herself. Screaming at Llare would do no good. She spun around and ran back to the east wing. A small screen was just inside the door; she approached it anxiously. “I have to speak to Llare,” she said. “Signal her for me—I have to ask her something.”

“You are not authorized,” the mind’s toneless voice replied. “Llare cannot be disturbed without authorization.”

“I don’t care. This is important. My cat’s in the west wing—I only want her back. Please let me talk to Llare.”

“You have no authorization.”

Nita shook her fist. The screen flickered. A face was staring out at her now, one she had never seen before. “I didn’t ask for an image,” she said.

“May I talk to you?” This face did not sound as calm as the other images. It had wide cheekbones, a strong chin, pale-blue eyes, and thick, disorderly light-brown hair. She could see the breadth of its shoulders under a blue coverall, and assumed that the image represented a male, although its voice was not as low as most of the men’s voices were. A thin chain from which an authorization dangled was around its neck.

“Get off the screen,” Nita muttered. “I have to talk to Llare.”

“Llare’s sleeping. Can’t you talk to me?”

“But Llare can’t be asleep. My cat’s in the west wing. Llare must have opened the door.” Why would the mind lie to her about that? She wondered if it was beginning to fail again. “What are you called, anyway?”

“My name’s Sven. You’re called Nita, aren’t you?”

“Well, you ought to know. All the images do.” Nita moved closer to the screen; the image called Sven seemed to shrink back.

“Your cat’s all right,” Sven said. “You don’t have to worry about that. I didn’t mean—”

His voice, she noticed, trembled a little. None of the faces had ever spoken to her in this manner; Sven did not sound like the mind. “I didn’t ask for your image,” she said. “Will you get off the screen?”

“But I’m not an image. I’m like you, except that I’m a boy. I’m real, Nita—I live here. Will you talk to me?”

She clasped her hands together, frightened, unable to believe this. “What do you mean?” she managed to say. “There’s no one here except Llipel and Llare and me.”

“You’re wrong. I’m here, too. They just didn’t want you to know, it wasn’t time to know. I didn’t know about you, either, until a little while ago.”

Llipel had lied. No, that wasn’t quite accurate. She had kept this secret and had allowed Nita to believe that she was alone. She had said no one would come here; she had not mentioned that one of Nita’s kind already dwelled in the Institute. Nita felt betrayed.

“Now you know,” Sven continued. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you without Llare finding out.” His blue eyes gazed at her intently. “I thought you’d be happy to know about me. I was excited when I found out about you.”

She could not accept it. She had longed for a friend, but if Sven was real, it meant that the guardian she had always trusted had deceived her. “You can’t be real,” she burst out. “You’re just something the mind called up. Llipel would have told me about you.”

“But I can prove I’m real.” His face dropped off the screen for a moment, then reappeared. He lifted his arms. Her gray cat squirmed in his grip and meowed; he drew Dusky to his chest and patted her gently.

“Dusky!” she cried.

“I would have put her back in the garden right away, but you sounded so angry—I didn’t know what you might do. I’ll show you I’m real. You can come and meet me, in the tower. We can talk in the lobby—I’ve never seen that room before. Will you come?”

“But I can’t. I’m not authorized to go there.”

“I’m authorized. I can ask the doors to open for you.”

She hesitated. The boy might be real, unbelievable as that seemed, but she didn’t know anything about him. He might not let her leave the tower again. He was authorized, while she wasn’t.

“I’ll come there,” she said at last, “but I’ll find another way to get to the tower.” An idea occurred to her. “Llipel’s asleep. I might be able to take her authorization.”

Sven nodded. “I’ll wait for you, then. I’ll bring your cat there, too.”

The screen went blank.

5

Llipel and she always slept in the room marked ADMINISTRATOR, DEPARTMENT OF EMBRYOLOGY, Nita on the couch, Llipel curled up on the desk. “Keep the light dim,” Nita whispered to the screen near the door, although even bright light was unlikely to wake her guardian. She hesitated in front of the door, then pressed her hand against it.

The door opened; she stepped inside. For a moment, she thought of waking her guardian and asking her what to do. Llipel might have had reasons for concealing Sven’s existence from her. But Sven would be expecting her to come to the tower alone.

Llipel was still deeply asleep; her thin arms were wrapped around her long legs. Nita crept across the pale carpet and stopped in front of the desk.

She was still numb with the shock of finding out about Sven; now she was planning to steal from her guardian. Llipel’s unlidded eyes were covered by their pearly membranes; when she slept, little could rouse her. She tiptoed around the desk until she was behind Llipel, who was lying on her side.

The chain was barely visible under her neck fur. Nita would have to ease it over her head somehow. She reached toward the chain, then noticed that a thin, flat piece of metal joined the links in the back. She touched that part of the chain and tugged a little as her fingers gripped it tightly. The two ends suddenly separated; the authorization slid down and clinked as the thin rectangle struck the top of the desk.

She froze. Llipel whistled softly, but did not move. Nita crept around the desk. The authorization was lying near Llipel’s left shoulder; she picked it up.

Her heart pounded; her throat was dry as she fled from the room. She was several paces down the hall before she halted to study the chain. The thin piece of metal, it seemed, was a clasp; she put the ends of the chain together and hung it around her neck.

Pangs of guilt pricked her for only a second. If Llipel had told her the truth earlier, she would not have had to take the chain. A time for togetherness with one of her own people had finally come.

Inside a closet, in a room called INSTITUTE PERSONNEL ONLY, she found a pair of coveralls that would fit her if she rolled up the arms and legs. She almost never wore clothes and might be concealing little that Sven had not already seen. But the images on the screen had always been clothed, and Beate had told her that her people removed their garments when they wanted to share love. She did not want Sven to think she wanted that much togetherness.

At the end of the hall, perpendicular to the south exit, stood the wide door marked GENETICS DEPARTMENT. She stepped forward, fearing that the door might not open after all. But she had authorization now; the scanner would have to let her pass. Her hand touched the door; it slid open.

She had seen diagrams of the Institute and knew that a hallway leading to the tower lay beyond the door. The ceiling’s light panels flowed on, one after another, until a band of illumination stretched to the far end of the hall. Her bare feet padded along the smooth gray floor, carrying her past pale walls and closed doors. When she reached the end of the corridor, she hesitated for a moment, took a breath, then touched the door.

She stepped forward as the door slid past her. The tower’s lobby was larger than any room she had ever seen, its ceiling so high overhead that she felt disoriented. A glass booth stood at her right; panels marked with bright splashes of color were on the far wall, above a long, cushioned platform that resembled a couch.

Sven was sitting on a square platform near the front doors. She walked toward him slowly, almost expecting him to disappear as the images did when she was through talking to them. His lips curved up as she came nearer, but his smile seemed more uncertain than those of the screen images.

“Hello,” she said, unable to think of anything else to say.

“Greetings,” he replied.

She studied the boy. The sleeves of his blue coverall were rolled up to his elbows. His arms were thicker and more muscular than hers, and although he was seated, she was sure he was taller as well. His blue eyes were large; his skin seemed paler than it had on the screen and was much lighter than her own dark-brown skin.

She reached out and touched his arm; he started. “You
are
real,” she said.