Alien Earth (45 page)

“Actually, that might work. We wouldn’t need weapons. We could just go in and announce that the Conservancy
was terminating the station as excess. That’s happened before. Get all the people on board and enwombed, then broadcast a real vague general distress call from the station, and then vent it.”

“And the people that didn’t want to get involved in what we were doing?” John asked curiously. He was so incredulous of what he was hearing that the question almost made sense to him.

“Put them in Waitsleep,” Connie offered. “And when we have enough of a work force to begin with, we take all the sleepers and drop them off at some other asteroid mining station. But I don’t think there will be that many who won’t want to give it a try. Have you ever spent any time at one of those stations?”

John shook his head.

“Well, living aboard Evangeline is a lot nicer. And most of them aren’t on those stations by choice; the Conservancy dumps a lot of ‘borderline unadjusteds’ out there. Just the kind of people who’d jump at the chance to change their lots.” Connie suddenly cocked her head. “The question, Evangeline, is whether you can provide for a much larger population aboard. What do you think?”

“I … you’re asking me this?” Evangeline sounded flustered.

“Well, you’re the only one who would know.”

“Well … space is no problem. If we salvaged supplies from each mining station before we destroyed it and added it to the present ship’s inventory … I foresee no problems.”

An earlier comment suddenly registered itself in John’s mind’. “Evangeline,” he asked softly. “You said pirating Beastships would be too complicated, for now. Does that mean eventually you would turn on your own kind?”

“I would turn on the parasites that infest my own kind. John, there is a loneliness within me that not even direct thought could convey to you. A hunger to be a Wild Beast, among other Wild Beasts.”

He thought he could catch a resonance of her feeling. “Actually, Evangeline, I think I do know the hunger you speak of. Connie and I both understand this feeling.”

“Then you would understand that eventually I must leave you to go and do this thing?”

“We understand that eventually we must go with you to do this thing,” Connie said quietly. “Do you think we would let you give us back our world, give us the stars, even, and then we would turn our backs on you?”

“This begins to sound like a deal, like Raef makes. Good exchanged for good. But, Connie, John, there would be a great deal of danger. If you stayed within me, you might be killed alongside me.”

“When you help us raid the mining stations, you’ll be taking the same risks,” Connie pointed out. “We have to face that eventually the Conservancy is going to figure out that something weird is going on, or that some Arthroplana is going to wonder whatever happened to Tug and come looking for him. It’s a matter of time before we’ll have to stand and fight for what we want. A few more Beastships allied in our favor could make all the difference.”

“‘Stand and fight.’” Evangeline sampled the phrase. “Yes, I believe there will be a time for that. But not yet. For now, stealth is ours to use. We’d be foolish not to take advantage of it.”

“You two are serious, aren’t you?” John asked incredulously.

“Do you have a better plan?” Connie challenged.

John shrugged, then abruptly laughed aloud. “Piracy. Why not?”

It was a quiet place
within his own mind, one he never would have found without her. Raef looked around it. He’d put fat Naugahyde chairs in it, and walled it with tall bookcases, like the ones in the old library on Sixth Street. They went all the way to the ceilings and had those slide-along ladders that the librarians had never liked him to use. The ceiling was a starry night sky, but the inside atmosphere was that cozy kind of warm you get in a softly lit room when you come in from a brisk autumn night when the wind is blustery. The smell in the room was the comfortable smell of books and pine forest. Old rugs cushioned the floor like the ones in his grandmother’s apartment, with a lot of deep red in their intricate designs.

That was all. And he was just sitting in it, not pretending anything, not even reading any of the well-
remembered books he’d stocked the room with. Just sitting and being himself. Breathing easy in the young man’s body he’d put on. But that was his only pretense. Other than that, he was just Raef.

[I’m back.] Soft whisper at the back of his mind.

“I know. I felt you.”

[Are you tired?]

“No. Actually, I was waiting for you. Kind of missing you.” He waved his hand expansively. “It’s done. I think. What do you think of it now?”

[The ceiling is much better.]

“I agree.” It had been immense beams the last time he’d let her look at it. Evangeline hadn’t complained, but Raef had felt how trapped she felt in it. “So,” he asked. “Did they finally get the lock open?”

[Of course. It was just like you guessed from the poem. It was keyed to a Beast’s voice, to my voice. I cried back to it like the recording of the child’s cry, and the docking portal came right open.]

“Oh.” He would have liked to have been there, to have walked into that place. He imagined it like a laboratory, with racks of test tubes and embryos floating in vats in some stasis solution and …

[It wasn’t like that. John and Connie told me all about it. I can pretense it for you, if you like.]

“No. That’s okay. Thanks anyway. Maybe later.” He still wasn’t used to the idea that she could speak to them, that she and Connie and John were all, well, not friends, not like she and Raef were, maybe, but …

[Shipmates.]

“Good word for it. Just tell me about it. What did they find?”

[About what you expected.] He was suddenly seeing it; his pleasant room had vanished. He entered the lock with John, rode on his shoulder; he must have been using some sort of recording unit. The time capsule was bigger than he expected, more like a space station than anything else. Evangeline walked him swiftly through it, locks, Spartan rooms for whatever crew had stayed here, laboratories and storage areas for specimens. She conveyed to him wordlessly what was here; seeds, spores, bacteria, ova, sperm, zygotes,
embryos, cryogenically preserved adult specimens of some organisms. Some of the storage units had obviously failed, but others appeared operational still, and the embryos behind the glass floated peacefully.

“I’d still like to know how they came up with that beacon to attract you.”

[John suggests that prior to evacuation, Humans had been monitoring space signals for signs of intelligent life. They would have recorded the cries of infants in an egg net without being aware of what they were. At some time, someone must have heard it and made the connection between those cries and the fuller-voiced signals of adult Beastships. A nice piece of deduction on someone’s part.]

“Yeah. Well, what do John and Connie think of all this? Are they seriously considering raiding the mining stations for recruits?” He grinned at how he’d found that odd bit floating in her mind.

He felt Evangeline’s shrug. The walls of the space ark faded, were replaced by his room. [It is hard to say. Right now, there is too much data. They will be months trying to understand it all. John was very excited at first, but Connie said she thought they should just leave everything as it was, not just the capsule but the Earth, too. Now Connie has become very excited. It seems there are Human zygotes preserved as well, old style, self-replicating Humans like you. But now John is saying perhaps the wise course would be to let things alone. He wonders if they have any right to tamper with the Earth, if it would not be an old foolishness revisited.]

“So they’re arguing?” Raef asked worriedly.

Evangeline considered. [No, not now. They are in Connie’s quarters, mating.] Another long pause. [They seem to find this activity both pleasurable and exciting. Their emotional emanations are quiet strong.]

“Right.” Raef felt a brief pang of jealousy for that physical closeness, and then sensed Evangeline’s sudden curiosity about it. He changed the subject. “And you. What do you think they should do?”

[Continue mating. It seems to bring them much satisfaction.]

“I meant about the time capsule and what’s in it.”

[I think they could discuss it for the next hundred years and the correct course would still not be plain. They must choose what they will do, and make it be the right course. There are many wonderful things in there. Wolves, such as we ran with in our pretense. Elephants. And horses.]

Silver appeared briefly in his room, reared to paw at the starry ceiling, and then vanished.

“I see.”

[Many of the nurturing vats are damaged or inoperable. But I have told them I have many womb chambers. With adaptations, I could nurture many kinds of creatures. Raef, I could be Mother to your whole world.]

For a moment the image dizzied him. Then he found himself smiling and thinking, Why not? Why the hell not? She probably knew more about being a real mom than any living Human did. Then another thought intruded.

“I’m afraid we’ve all been sort of selfish.” He paced his study restlessly. “I mean, here we are, gloating over what you found for us, and teasing ourselves with just how to enjoy it. I don’t think anyone’s said they were sorry you were so disappointed. Well, I am. I know what it would have meant to you to have found little babies out there, and Wild Beasts of your own kind. I mean, you and me, Evangeline. We’re the last of us there is.”

She was silent a long time. [I had not thought friends could share each other’s pain. That was foolish of me, for I knew you had shared Jeffrey’s pain. And now I see you know of my hurt and share it. So share my comfort as well. You are not the last, Raef. There can be others like you, grown from the materials in the station. And I need not be the last of my kind. Not if I am brave and a hero, and dare to free a mate for myself. Then we could have babies, and there would again be Wild Beasts in the universe. Maybe I will be able to free more than one, and there will be herds of us again, as there once were.]

“How do you know there were herds of you?”

[Your kind might call it a racial memory. Tug’s presence in me hid much from myself; as if the parasite stands between the Beast and all the Beast must know to be free.
There is something I would show you, something special.]

“What is it?”

[Your language is too small, sometimes.] She caught him up and swept him away with her, out into the stars and beyond, spreading him again, unbearably thin throughout a hundred solar systems. Stars beyond stars glittered, and this time she saw their beauty with him. She spun him up and on, and he sensed how very far they moved, and feared for his sanity. But suddenly there was a dull red star that beckoned him with a warmth that was more than solar. And then there was a planet, gold and red and brown, rich with thick winds. [Home.] She explained unnecessarily. [I knew all along. We all are born knowing where it is, even before our parents carry us there. Like the streams and rivers of your migratory fish, or the wintering places of your south-flying birds. It is where I must go, if ever I have infants of my own.]

“Can’t you just go there now? Maybe Tug was lying. You might find your own kind. Then you wouldn’t be lonely anymore.”

There was a long pause, then she spoke very gently. [Raef, there are no more Wild Beasts. I can feel the truth of what my parasite said. If I am to have a mate, I must free one from the parasites. I am not sure yet how it can be done. Perhaps I must find a bubble net of slave babies, and fight whatever Beast guards it. Perhaps I can find an old Beast, one old enough to be feeling discontent, to be sensing there is more than slavery. The how of it is something I must think about and plan. But I have time to do that; my life is thousands of yours. I feel that I have time to help your people regain their world. When this is accomplished, then they will help me with what I must do. This they have promised; it’s a deal.]

“But won’t you be lonely until then?”

[Sometimes you are not very smart. I am not lonely, now. When I am, then there will be plenty of time to seek a mate among my own kind.]

It seemed that he just turned around and was back in his study again, amid the fat chairs and the books. Already it was familiar and comfortable. Home. A place it seemed
he’d waited forever to find. Which brought up another question.

“How long do you think it will be? Before … you’re lonely?”

The silence was very long.

“Dammit, Evangeline. What is it, am I already dead?”

[Not … no.]

“Then how long?” The old anger broke out in his voice.

It didn’t scare her. [You idiot. Your whole life, to me, is but a moment. How brief can be the time that is left to you? I cannot say. How long, when you live it like this, at the speed of thought? Only you can say.]

And the anger passed. He thought of a fire in the red brick fireplace in the corner, and it was so. He went and sat down beside it, picked up a skewer, and took a marshmallow from the bag. “I haven’t shown you this. Want to try it?”

[I guess so.]

“Then you’re going to have to come in. Don’t be shy.”

[Okay.] But there was a pause. Then a door he hadn’t noticed before opened just a crack, held there. She hesitated. [What should I look like?]

“Anything you want.”

[Mother.]

“If you want …” he started to say, and then paused. He didn’t really want her to be Mother anymore. She was more than Mother now. She was everyone and anyone in the world. And the only one, he thought, but she was enough. “I’m just being Raef. Be Evangeline,” he suggested and waited.

It took her a while.

And then she came in slowly. Her hair was spiky and white, like a punk, he might have said at first. But no, not at all like a punk, for it moved gracefully and softly as she came, stirring in tendrils and wavering locks that reminded him of flames. She moved as her ship body moved, smoothly, elegantly, full of purpose and yet unhurried. Her face was classic and not Human, and yet familiar, the Mona Lisa and the girl next door and a majestic Beast that moved through the stars and something else he would never have a name for.
She watched the carpet as she walked. And then she looked up and their eyes met and she was Evangeline. Evangeline, pure and simple, and wise and complex. Totally alien and totally familiar.