Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (56 page)

“Captain, Captain, are you all right?” Aaron starts to run forward, checks himself. “Tiger, close the port.”

Yellaston is walking stiffly toward him, looking straight ahead. Face a little pale, Aaron thinks, no injuries visible. He’s all right, whatever happened. It’s all right.

“Captain, I—” But there are more figures at the port, Aaron sees, Tim Bron and Coby, coming in past Tighe. Others beyond. Aaron has never been so glad to see his assistant, he yells something at him and turns to catch up with Yellaston.

“Captain—” He wants to talk about sealing off the corridor, about examining them all. But Yellaston does not look around.

“The red,” Yellaston says in a faint remote voice. “The red . . . is the correct . . . signal.” He walks on, toward the bridge.

Some sort of shock, Aaron thinks, and sees movement by the wall ahead—it is Lory, up and staggering away from him. But she isn’t going toward the corridor, she’s going up a ramp into the ship. The clinic is where she belongs. Aaron starts after her, confident that the drug will slow her down. But his suit is awkward, he has not counted on that feral vitality. She stays ahead of him, she gains speed up the twisting tube as the gees let go. He pounds up after her, past the dormitory levels, past Stores; he is half-sailing now. Lory dives into the central free-fall shaft—but not going straight, he sees her twist left, toward the bridge.

Cursing, Aaron follows her in. His feet miss the guides, he ricochets, has trouble regaining speed. Lory is a receding minnow-shape ahead of him, going like a streak. She shoots through the command-section sphincter, checks. Damn, she’s closing it against him.

By the time he gets it open and goes through, the core shaft is empty. Aaron kicks on into the Astrogation dome. Nobody there. He climbs out of the free-fall area and starts back around the computer corridor. Nobody here either. Åhlstrom’s gleaming pets are untended. This has never happened before. It’s like a ghost ship. Station after station is empty. The physics display-screen is running a calculation, unobserved.

A sound breaks the silence, coming from the next ring aft. Oh, god, Bustamente’s Commo room! Aaron can’t find the inside door, he doubles back out into the corridor, races clumsily sternward, terror in his guts as the sound rises to a scream.

The Commo room is open. Aaron plunges in, checks in horror. Lory is standing in the sacred gyro chamber. The scream is coming from the open gyro housings. Her arm jerks out, sending a stream of objects—headsets, jacks, wrenches—into the flying wheels.

“Stop!” He lunges for her, but the sound has risen to a terrible yammering. A death cry—the great pure beings who have spun there faultlessly for a decade holding their lifeline to Earth are in mortal agony. They clash, collide horribly. A cam shoots past him, buries itself in the wall. She has killed them, his mad sister.

Gripping her he stands there stunned, scarcely able to take in other damage. The housing of the main laser crystals is wrecked; they have been hit with something. That hardly matters now, Aaron thinks numbly. Without the gyros to aim them, the beam is only an idiot’s finger flailing across the stars.

“We, we’ll go together, Arn,” Lory hangs on him, weak now. “They can’t—stop us anymore.”

Aaron’s substrate takes over; he utters a howl and starts to shake her by the neck, squeezing, crushing—but is startled into stasis by a voice behind him, saying, “Bustamente.”

He wheels. It is Captain Yellaston.

“I will send . . . the red signal . . . now.”

“You can’t!” Aaron yells in rage. “You can’t, it’s broken!
She
broke it!” Preadolescent fury floods him, ebbs as he sees that remote, uncomprehending face.

“You will send . . . the red signal.” The man is in shock, all right.

“Sir, we can’t—we can’t send anything right now.” Aaron releases Lory, takes Yellaston’s arm. Yellaston frowns down at him, purses his lips. A two-liter night. He lets himself be turned away, headed toward his quarters. Aaron is irrationally grateful: as long as Yellaston hasn’t seen the enormity it isn’t real. He pulls back the captain’s glove, checks the pulse as they go. About sixty; slow but not arrhythmic.

“The technical capacity . . . ” Yellaston mutters, going into his room. “If you have the efficiency . . . you’ll wake up in the morning. . . .”

“Please lie down awhile, Captain.” Aaron closes the door, sees Lory wandering behind him. He takes her arm and starts back toward his office, resisting the faint urge to turn toward Gamma One. If he can only get to his office he can begin to function, decide what to do. What has hit
Centaur
’s people, what did that alien do? A static discharge, maybe, like an electric eel? Better try his standard adrenergic stim-shot, if the heart rates are okay. That overwhelming attractant—he can feel it now, even here in Beta corridor on the far side of the ship. Like a pheromone, Aaron decides. That thing is a sessile life-form, maybe it attracts food, maybe it gets itself fertilized that way. Just happens that it works on man. A field, maybe, like gravity. Or some fantastically attenuated particle. The suits didn’t stop it completely. I should seal it off, that’s the first thing, he tells himself, leading Lory, docile now. They are passing Don’s scout-ship berth. But the
Beast
isn’t here, it’s god knows how many thousand miles away now, blatting out its message.

Someone is here—Don Purcell is standing by an access ramp, staring at the deck. Aaron drags Lory faster.

“Don! Commander, are you okay?”

Don’s head turns to him; the grin is there, the eyes have smile-wrinkles. But Aaron sees his pupils are unequally dilated, like a poleaxed steer. How severe was that shock? He takes the unresisting wrist.

“Can you recognize me, Don? It’s Aaron. It’s Doc. You’ve had a physical shock, you shouldn’t be wandering around.” Pulse slow, like Yellaston’s; no irregularity Aaron can catch. “I want you to come with me to the clinic.”

The strong body doesn’t move. Aaron pulls at him, realizes he can’t budge him alone. He needs his syringe kit, too.

“That’s a medical order, Don. Report for treatment.”

The smile slowly focuses on him, puzzled.

“The power,” Don says in the voice he uses at chapel. “The hand of the Almighty on the deep . . .”

“See, Arn?” Lory reaches out toward Don, pats him. “He’s changed. He’s gentle.” She smiles tremulously.

Aaron leads her on, wondering how seriously people have been hit.
Centaur
can sustain itself for days, that part’s all right. He will not think of the more fearful hurt, the murdered gyros; Bustamente—Bustamente can do something, somehow. But how long are people going to remain in shock? How many of them got hit by that thing, who is functioning besides himself? Could it be permanent damage? Impossible, he tells himself firmly; a shock that severe would have finished poor Tighe. Impossible.

As he turns off to the clinic, Lory suddenly pulls back.

“No, Arn, this way!”

“We’re going to the office, Lor. I have work to do.”

“Oh, no, Arn. Don’t you
understand?
We’re going now, together.” Her voice is plaintive, with a loose, slurred quality. Aaron’s training wakes up. Chemical supplementation, as Foy said—this is the time to get some answers from the subject.

“Sis, talk to me a minute, then we’ll go. What happened to them, what happened to Mei-Lin and the others on the planet?”

“Mei-Lin?” she frowns.

“Yes, what did you see them do? You can tell me now, Lor. Did you see them out there?”

“Oh, yes . . .” She gives a vague little laugh. “I saw them. They left me in the ship, Arn. They, they didn’t want me.” Her lips quiver.

“What did they do, Lor?”

“Oh, they walked. Little Kuh had the video, I could see where they went. Up the hills, toward the, toward the beauty . . . It was hours, hours and hours. And then Mei-Lin and Liu went on ahead, I could see them running—Oh, Arn, I wanted to run too, you can’t imagine how they look—”

“What happened then, Lor?”

“They took off their helmets, and then the camera fell down, I guess the others were all running too. I could see their feet—it was like a mountain of jewels in the sun—” Tears are running down her face, she rubs her fist at them like a child.

“What did you see then? What did the jewel-thing do to them?”

“It didn’t do anything.” She smiles, sniffing. “They just touched it, you know, with their minds. You’ll
see
, Arn. Please—let’s go now.”

“In a minute, Lor. Tell me, did they fight?”

“Oh, no!” Her eyes widen at him. “No! Oh, I made that up to protect it. No hurting anymore, never. They came back so gentle, so happy. They were all changed, they shed all that. It’s waiting for us, Arn, see? It wants to deliver us. We’ll be truly human at last.” She sighs. “Oh, I wanted so much to go, too, it was terrible. I had to tie myself, even in the suit. I
had
to bring it back to you. And I did, didn’t I?”

“You got that thing in the scouter all by yourself, Lor?”

She nods, dream-eyed. “I found a little one, I poked it with the front-end loader.” The contrast between her words and her face is weird.

“What were Kuh and his men doing all this time? Didn’t they try to stop you?”

“Oh, no, they watched. They were around. Please Arn, come
on
.”

“How long did it take you?”

“Oh, days, Arn, it was so hard. I could only do a little at a time.”

“You mean they didn’t recover for days? What about that tape, Lor; you faked it, didn’t you?”

“I, I edited it a little. He wasn’t . . . interested.” Her eyes shift evasively. Control returning. “Arn, don’t be
afraid
. The bad things are over now. Can’t you feel it, the goodness?”

He can—it’s there, pulling at him faint and bliss-laden. He shudders awake, discovers he has let her lead him nearly to the core, toward Gamma One. Angrily he makes himself grab the handrail and start hauling her back toward the clinic. It is like moving through glue, his body doesn’t want to.

“No, Arn, no!” She pulls back, sobbing. “You
have
to, I worked so hard—”

He concentrates grimly on his feet. The clinic door is ahead now, to his infinite relief he can see Coby inside at the desk.

“You aren’t coming!” Lory wails and jerks violently out of his grasp. “You—oh—”

He jumps for her, but she is running away again, running like a goddamned deer. Aaron checks himself. He cannot chase after her now, he has evaded his duty too long as it is. Days, she said. This is appalling. And they were walking around. Brain damage . . . Don’t think of it.

He goes into the office. Coby is looking at him.

“My sister is in psychotic fugue,” Aaron tells him. “She damaged our communication equipment. Sedation ineffective—” He perceives he is acting irrationally, he should tackle the major medical situation first.

“How many people got shocked by that thing, Bill?” Coby’s noncommittal gaze does not change. Finally he says dully, “Shock. Oh, yes. Shock.” His lip twists in a ghostly sneer. Oh, god, no . . . Coby was in that corridor, too.

“Jesus, Bill, did it get you? I’m going to give you a shot of AD-twelve. Unless you have other ideas?”

Coby’s eyes are following him. Maybe he isn’t as severely affected, Aaron thinks.

“Postcoitum tristum.” Coby’s voice is very low. “I am tristum.”

“What did it do to you, Bill, can you tell me?”

The silent, sad stare continues. Just as Aaron opens the hypo kit Coby says clearly, “I know a ripe corpus luteum when I see one.” He gives a faint, nasty chuckle.

“What?” Obscene visions leap to life in Aaron’s head as he bares Coby’s elbow and sends the epidermal jet into the vein. “Did you, you didn’t have some sort of intercourse with that thing, Bill?”

“In-ter-course?” Coby echoes in a whisper. “No . . . not us, anyway. If somebody had . . . in-ter-course it was god, maybe. . . . Or a planet . . . Not us . . . It had us.”

His pulse is slow, skin cold. “What do you mean, Bill?”

Coby’s face quivers, he stares up into Aaron’s eyes, fighting to hang on to consciousness. “Say we were carrying it . . . carrying a load of jizzum in our heads, I guess. . . . And the jizzum meets . . . the queen couzy, the queen couzy of all time . . . and it jumps . . . jumps across. It makes some kind of holy . . . zygote, out there . . . see? Only we’re left . . . empty. . . . What happens to a sperm’s tail . . . afterward?”

“Take it easy, Bill.” Aaron will not listen, oh, no, not to delirium. His best diagnostician raving.

Coby emits another ghastly snicker. “Good old Aaron,” he whispers. “You didn’t. . . .” His eyes go blank.

“Bill, try to pull yourself together. Stay right there. People are in shock, they’re wandering around disoriented. I have work to do, can you hear me? Stay here, I’ll be back.”

Visions of himself hustling through the ship, reviving people—more important, sealing off that corridor, too. He loads a kit of stim-hypos, adds cardiotropics, detoxicants. An hour too late, Dr. Aaron Kaye is on the job. He draws hot brew for them both. Coby doesn’t look.

“Drink up, Bill. I’ll be back.”

He sets off to Stores, steering against the pull from Gamma One. It is weak here. He can make it quite easily. Is it in refractory phase, maybe? Shot its bolt. How long to recovery? Better attend to that first, can’t let it get them all over again.

Miriamne Stein is at her desk, her face absolutely quiet.

“It’s Doc, Miri. You’ve had a shock, this will help you.” He hopes, administering it to her passive arm. Her empty eyes slowly turn. “I’m checking out some EVA rope, see? I’ll leave you a receipt right here, Miri, look. You stay there until you feel better.”

Outside, he lets himself start across the ship, going with the pull. Joy opens in him, it is like a delicious sliding, like letting go sexually in his head. . . . Am I acting rationally? He probes himself, scared. Yes—he can make himself turn, make himself go forward toward the first bow-ramp. His plan is to close all the ports the crowd left open on their way into the corridor. Fourteen. After that—after that he can, he knows, vent the air from the inboard side. Depressurizing will kill it, of course. The sensible thing to do. No, surely that isn’t necessary? He will think about it later, something is hurting him right now.