Picnic on Nearside (6 page)

The woman towed him down the passageway like a toy balloon. They ended up in the grand ballroom.

The ballroom was a hemisphere of nullfield sitting on the surface of the
Snowball
. From inside it was invisible. The dance area was crowded with couples trying out free-fall dances. Most of them had the easy grace of a somersaulting giraffe.

Quester sobered a bit in the near-zero gee. Part of it was the
effect of the antinausea drugs he had taken for free-fall; they also tended to reduce the effects of alcohol.

“What’s your name?” he asked the woman.

“Solace. You?”

“I’m Quester. From Tharsis, Mars. I’m . . . I’m confused about a lot of things.”

She floated over to a table, still towing Quester, and fastened him to one of the chairs. He turned his attention from the twisting bodies in the dance area to his companion.

Solace was tall, much taller than a man or a woman would naturally grow. He estimated she was two and a half meters from head to toe, though she had no toes. Her feet had been replaced with peds, oversized hands popular with spacers. They were useful in free-fall, and for other things, as he discovered when she reached across the table with one slender leg and cupped his cheek with her ped. Her legs were as limber and flexible as her arms.

“Thanks,” she said, with a smile. “For the luck, I mean.”

“Hmmm? Oh, you mean the bet.” Quester had to drag his attention back from the delightful sensation on his cheek. She was beautiful. “But I wasn’t advising you on a bet. I was trying to tell you . . .”

“I know. You were saying something about the lifeboats.”

“Yes. It’s astounding, I . . .” He stopped, realizing that he couldn’t remember what was astounding. He was having trouble focusing on her. She was wearing a kaleidoholo suit, which meant she was naked but for a constantly shifting pattern of projections. There seemed to be fifty or sixty different suits contained in it, none persisting for longer than a few seconds. It would melt smoothly from a silver sheath dress to an almost military uniform with gold braid and buttons to a garland of flowers to Lady Godiva. He rubbed his eyes and went on.

“They’re salvaging the ship,” he said. “The last I heard there were only twenty-seven lifeboats left. And more are leaving every hour. They’re taking the electronic equipment with them. And the furnishings and the machinery and who knows what else. I overheard the captain talking to a company representative.
He’s
worried, the
captain!
But no one else seems to be. Am I worrying over nothing, or what?”

Solace looked down at her folded hands for a moment, then brought her eyes back up to his.

“I’ve been uneasy, too,” she said in a low voice. She leaned closer to him. “I’ve shared my apprehensions with a group of friends. We . . . get together and share what we have learned. Our friends laugh at us when we tell them of our suspicions, but . . .” She paused and looked suspiciously around her. Even in his befuddled state Quester had to smile.

“Go on,” he said.

She seemed to make up her mind about him and leaned even closer.

“We’ll be meeting again soon. Several of us have been scouting around—I was covering the casino when we met—and we’ll share our findings and try to come to a consensus on what to do. Are you with us?”

Quester fought off the feeling, quite strong since his suspicions began to haunt him, that he was somehow trapped in an adventure movie. But if he was, he was just getting to the good part.

“You can count me in.”

With no further ado, she grabbed his arm in one of her peds and began towing him along, using her hands to grab onto whatever was handy. He thought of objecting, but she was much better than he at weightless maneuvering.

“May I have your attention, please?”

Quester looked around and spotted the captain standing in the center of the stage, in front of the band. He was not alone. On each side of him were women dressed in black jumpsuits, their eyes alertly scanning the audience. They were armed.

“Please, please.” The captain held up his arms for quiet and eventually got it. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

“There is no cause for alarm. No matter what you may have been hearing, the ship is in no danger. The stories about the main engines having been removed are lies, pure and simple. We are looking for the people who planted these rumors and will soon have all of them in custody. The chief engineer wishes to announce that tours of the engine room will be resumed—”

One of the women shot the captain a glance. He mopped his brow again and consulted a slip of paper in his hand. The hand was shaking.

“Ah, a correction. The engineer announces that tours will
not
be resumed. There is, ah . . . that is, they are being overhauled, or . . . or something.” The woman relaxed slightly.

“The rumor that the main reactor has been shut down is unfounded. The surgeon has told me that there has been no spillage of radioactive material, and even if there had been, the amount was insignificant and would only have been a danger to those passengers with high cumulative exposures. The surgeon will be collecting dosimeters at 1400 hours tomorrow.

“Let me repeat: there is no cause for alarm. As captain of this ship, I take a very dim view of rumormongering. Anyone caught disseminating stories about the unspaceworthiness of this vessel in the future will be dealt with sternly.”

“Lifeboat drill will be held tomorrow on A Deck, as scheduled. Anyone who has not as yet been checked out on his life jacket will do so by noon tomorrow, ship’s time. That is . . . is that all?” This last was addressed to the woman to his left, in a whisper. She nodded curtly, and the three of them walked off the stage, their magnetized shoes sticking to the deck like flypaper.

Solace nudged Quester in the ribs.

“Are those women bodyguards?” she whispered. “Do you think his life is in danger?”

Quester looked at the way the women gripped the captain’s elbows. Not bodyguards, but guards, certainly . . .

“Say, I just remembered I still have some unpacking to do,” he said. “Maybe I can join you and your friends later on. I’ll just nose around, see what I can pick up, you know, and—”

But he couldn’t squirm free of her grip. Those peds were
strong
.

“May I have your attention, please? Lifeboat drill for tomorrow has been canceled. Repeat, canceled. Passengers showing up at the cradles for lifeboat drill will be interrogated, by order of the captain. That is all.”

On the way to Solace’s room, the two were shoved out of the way by a group of people in uniform. Their faces were determined, and some of them carried clubs.

“Where does that corridor lead?” he asked.

“To the bridge. But they won’t find anything there, it’s been—”

“I know.”

“I think we’re being followed.”

“Wha’?” He looked behind him as he bounced along in her wake. There was someone back there, all right. They turned a corner and Solace hauled Quester into a dimly lit alcove, bumping his head roughly against the wall. He was getting fed up with this business of being dragged. If this was an adventure, he was Winnie-the-Pooh following Christopher Robin up the stairs. He started to object, but she clapped a hand around his mouth, holding him close.

“Shhh,” she hissed.

A fine thing, Quester grumbled to himself. Can’t even speak my mind. He thought he was better off before, alone and puzzled, then he was with this mysterious giantess towing him around.

Of course, things could have been worse, he reflected. She was warm and naked to the touch no matter what his eyes told him. And
tall
. Floating there in the hall, she extended above and below him by a third of a meter.

“How can I think of something like that at a time like this?” he began, but she hushed him again and her arms tightened around him. He realized she was really scared, and he began to be so himself. The liquor and the sheer unlikelihood of recent events had detached him; he was drifting along, rudderless. Nothing in his life had prepared him to cope with things like the black-suited man who now eased slowly around the corner in shadowy pursuit of them.

They watched him from the concealment of the alcove. Many of the lights in the corridor were not working or were mere empty sockets. Earlier, Quester had been alarmed at this, adding it to his list of ways not to run a spaceship. Now, he was grateful.

“He doesn’t look much like a man at all,” Solace whispered. And sure enough, he didn’t. Nor a woman. He didn’t look too human.

“Humanoid, I’d say,” Quester whispered back. “Pity no one told us. Obviously the system’s been invaded by the first intelligent race of humanoids.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. And be quiet.” The man, or whatever it was, was very close now. They could see the ill-fitting pink mask, the lumps and nodules in odd places under his sweater and
pants. He passed them by, leaving a pungent odor of hydrogen sulfide.

Quester found himself laughing. To his surprise, Solace laughed along with him. The situation was so grotesque that he had to either laugh or scream.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t
believe
in sinister humanoid invaders.”

“No? But you believe in superhuman heavy-planet Invaders like the ones that have occupied the Earth, don’t you? And you haven’t even
seen
them.”

“Are you telling me you do believe that thing was an . . . an alien?”

“I’m not saying anything. But I’m wondering what those people were doing, earlier, armed with clubs. Do you believe in mutiny?”

“Solace, I’d
welcome
a mutiny, I’d throw a party, give away all my worldly wealth to charity if only such a normal, everyday thing would happen. But I don’t think it will. I think we’ve fallen through the looking glass.”

“You think you’re crazy?” She looked at him skeptically.

“Yep. I’m going to turn myself in right now. You’re obviously not even here. Maybe this ship isn’t even here.”

She twisted slightly in the air, bringing her legs up close to his chest.

“I’ll prove to you I’m here,” she said, working with all four hands and peds at unbuttoning him.

“Hold it. What are you . . . how can you think of that at a time like . . .” It sounded familiar. She laughed, holding his wrists with her hands as her peds quickly stripped him.

“You’ve never been in danger before,” she said. “I have. It’s a common reaction to get aroused in a tight spot, especially when the danger’s not immediate. And you are, and so am I.”

It was true. He was, but didn’t like doing it in the hallway.

“There’s not room here,” he protested. “Another of those critters could come along.”

“Yes, isn’t it exciting?” Her eyes were alight by now, and her breath was fast and shallow. “And if you think there isn’t room, you haven’t done it in free-fall yet. Ever tried the Hermesian Hyperbola?”

Quester sighed, and submitted. Soon he was doing more than
submitting. He decided she was as crazy as everyone else, or, alternatively, he was crazy and she was as sane as everybody else. But she was right about the free-fall. There was plenty of room.

They were interrupted by a crackle of static from the public address. They paused to listen to it.

“Attention, your attention please. This is the provisional captain speaking. The traitor running-dog lackey ex-captain is now in chains. Long Live the Revolutionary Committee, who will now lead us on the true path of Procreative Anti-Abortionism.”

“Free-Birthers!” Quester yelped. “We’ve been hijacked by Free-Birthers!”

The new captain, who sounded like a woman, started to go on, but her voice was cut short in a hideous gurgle.

“Long Live the Loyalist Faction of the Glorious Siblings of the—” a new voice began, but it, too, was cut short. Voices shouted in rapid succession.

“The counterrevolution has been suppressed,” shouted yet another captain. “Liberate our wombs! Our gonads—our Freedom! Attention, attention! All female persons aboard this ship are ordered to report at once to the infirmary for artificial insemination. Shirkers will be obliterated. That is all.”

Neither of them said anything for a long time. At last Solace eased herself away a bit and let him slip out of her. She let out a deep breath.

“I wonder if I could plead double jeopardy?”

“Insanity four, reality nothing,” Quester giggled. He was in high spirits as they skulked their way down the dim corridors.

“Are you still on that?” Solace shot back. She sounded a bit tired of him. She kept having to hang back as he struggled to keep up with her supple quadridexterous pace. “Listen, if you want to get fitted for a straitjacket, the tailor’s in the other direction. Me, I don’t care how ridiculous the situation gets. I’ll keep coping.”

“I can’t help it,” he admitted. “I keep feeling that I
wrote
this story several years ago. Maybe in another life. I dunno.”

She peered around another corner. They were on their way to the temporary bridge. They had stopped three times already to watch black-suited figures drift by. Everyone else they had seen—those dressed in holiday clothes—had ducked into doorways as quickly as they themselves. At least it seemed that the passengers
were no longer in the holiday mood, were aware that there was something wrong.

“You a writer?” she asked.

“Yes. I write scientifiction. Maybe you’ve heard of it. There’s a cult following, but we don’t reach the general public.”

“What’s it about?”

“Scientifiction deals with life on Earth. It’s set in the future—each of us creates our own hypothetical future with our own ground rules and set of assumptions. The basic assumption is that we figure out a way to fight the Invaders and reclaim the Earth, or at least a beachhead. In my stories we’ve managed to rout the Invaders, but the dolphins and whales are still around, and they want their allies back, so humans fight them. It’s adventure stuff, purely for thrills. I have a hero called the Panama Kid.”

She glanced back at him, and he couldn’t read the expression. He was used to taking the defensive about his vocation.

“Is there a living in that?”