Alien Earth (26 page)

What in hell had he done, dreaming aloud to her all these years? What had he created, and how did he undo it?

“Uh, Evangeline, maybe you should let Tug entertain you for a while.”

[Mother.]

Shit. “Mother, maybe Tug misses you. Perhaps you should let him entertain you for a while. Maybe he’s lonely.”

[No. Tug is quite busy. The satellite has failed. John must go out in the shuttle to fix it. Connie wishes to go, too. They are arguing. Tug is very focused on them. He finds them much more interesting than me.]

Satellite? Shuttle? Something was going wrong aboard the ship, and he was still in Waitsleep? The ship was in danger and he was … he was talking to the damn ship, telling her stories, stuffing her full of chocolate-chip cookies. Or could that be what was causing the problems? Raef struggled to come closer to wakefulness, felt himself held firmly down.

[Do not go away. I cannot hear you when you go up to Tug. Let us pretense some more.]

“Let’s make a deal, Evangel … Mother.”

[Deal?]

She didn’t have the concept. It was creepy, how close they were, how much he could tell from her thoughts now. Was this telepathy, like in all the comic books? He supposed so. “A deal is when I do something good for you, something to please you so you do something good for me, something to please me. Okay?”

[Tug does this. But he does not ask. Tug tells me to go to a certain place. As long as we are going there, he gives me entertainments. I did not know one could ask to make a deal. Tug never told me I could be asked. Tug just makes his part of the deal so I have to do mine. This is so?]

He didn’t want to touch that question. “This can be our
deal, Mother. I have told you many stories, and made pretenses for you. This was a good thing I did, that pleased you?”

[Yes. You have been like me, doing the good first.]

“So will you do a good for me now, to please me?”

Long pause.

[I have no goods to do you. I have no stories except the ones you told me, no pretenses but the ones you have given me…. I can show you a game. Tic-tac-toe. There are only X’s in my game, and all is always harmonious. One cannot lose.]

“Sounds thrilling. But I do not choose that right now. You do have a good that you can do me, a story you can tell me, that would please me very much. Mother, tell me all about the satellite and the shuttle and the crew. Would you do that?”

[This is of little interest to me.]

“This is of great interest to me, and would please me. And after you tell me these things, I’ll do something for you.”

[Another good?]

“Another pretense.”

[There can be more than one pretense for me?]

“Sure. As many as you want.” Sudden inspiration struck Raef. “You don’t even have to be Mother all the time. You can be anyone you like.”

[I like being Mother.]

“Okay. Sure, I like you being Mother, too. Okay, but, uh, you know, there’s a lot more than just chocolate-chip cookies and milk. There’s gingerbread, and spaghetti, and, oh, chocolate cake with whipped cream, and …” Raef felt her ten-drilling after the fleeting sensory tastes he’d fed her. Gotcha. “After you tell me about the satellite and shuttle and all. Is it a deal?”

[A deal is good exchanged for good. It is a deal.]

“So. What’s with the satellite and the shuttle and all?”

[The satellite is one of the camera-carrying ones we put into orbit to gather information. Its camera has ceased operating. It may be a dysfunction in the orientation sensor. Connie and John have gone out in the shuttle to repair it.]

“Equipment malfunction, huh?”

[No. This is not a malfunction. The camera has ceased to operate as John knew that it would. They have left in the shuttle as he planned.]

“I don’t understand, Evangeline.”

[Mother.]

“Mother, I don’t understand.”

[Do you wish me to repeat in different words?]

“No. I do not understand why John would wish the camera to cease functioning. You are sure he was expecting this?”

[He does not dream as well as you. His dreams are thin, and change often, and sometimes are only images. But this dream he has had often.]

“Sometimes Humans dream of what they fear, Evan … Mother. Sometimes we dream of what we hope will not happen, what we fear. I think perhaps John feared the camera malfunction.”

[No. Pulse, respiration, and chemicals secreted in the excretions of his skin suggest pleasure and excitement. Not fear. John planned this with his associates. It was a deal, such as you have shown me. Good for good.]

Raef felt like he was suffocating. Almost, he could sense Evangeline feeding him more oxygen, calming him, steadying his heartbeat. This damn John was sabotaging the ship. What the hell were his intentions, and why? He tried to find the best way to phrase his next question, instead found himself wishing he could just go back into deep dreaming. For himself. He recalled all the times he had fantasized that Evangeline was his ship, that he was secretly her captain, not just some fucking stowaway that Tug chanced to find amusing. So here it was, finally, the big day he had imagined so often, the time when he would be needed and he would stride forth and save the day, and they would all have to admit he was just as good as any of them, and they’d have to let him land. Here was the day, and he was going to go back to sleep? No. But he had to ask the right questions, if he was going to find out what was really going on.

“Mother. What does John expect to happen next?”

[John is piloting the shuttle. In 93.29 minutes he will pace the satellite. Connie will operate the arm to bring it within the repair bay. Then they will dress in the protective
suits and they will go out and repair the unit. Then they will restore it to orbit.]

“John wanted the satellite to fail, so he could repair the unit and replace it in orbit? Will the satellite work?”

[This is an event that has not passed yet. I cannot know.]

Wrong question. Try again, carefully. Time might be important. “Does John expect the satellite to work?”

[Yes. John expects the satellite to function after repairs.]

“What does John expect to do after that?”

[He and Connie will return to the shuttle command chamber. They will remove their suits. They will call Tug and tell him they are returning. They will start to come back. Then the shuttle will cease to function normally. John will call to tell Tug they cannot return. Then the shuttle will go instead to the planet it orbits.]

“Then what will happen?”

[This event has not …]

“What does John expect to happen then?”

[His dream goes no further than this.]

“Mother, what planet do we orbit?”

[Your homeworld. Earth, Terra.]

A strange thrill shot through Raef. How many hundreds of years had passed since he had been this close to home? And what did John intend down there? He had to know.

“Mother, bring me out of Waitsleep.”

Nothing. No response. But Raef knew what it meant. She had not yet learned how to refuse, but she was puzzling it out.

“Mother?”

[I am here.]

“I’d like to wake up. I think perhaps there are important things for me to do.”

Pause.

[No. There is nothing you can do. Nothing you can do would affect the events on the shuttle. And we have to finish our deal. I have told you what is happening on the satellite and the shuttle. That was the good you wished for. Now you must give me the gingerbread and spaghetti and chocolate cake with whipped cream. That is the good I wished for.]

Raef wanted to scream. He longed to lash out at the womb walls, wanted to rip his way out of there. Damn. His
only chance to be a hero, and he would sleep through it, dreaming cookies for a spaceship. Wouldn’t his life ever be fair?

No. It wouldn’t be. So think, dammit. Deal. Deal with her. Hook her on this deal, and then up the ante. It would work. It had to work, because it was the only card he had.

So play it to the hilt.

He brought back the kitchen, the red-checked cloth, the empty milk carton, the few crumbs of cookie left in the jar. He looked up at his mom. “Oh, oh, Mom. Looks like we ate them all. And you know how Dad loves fresh cookies when he gets back from a long run. What are we going to do?”

Confusion. Finally …

[This is an unhappy pretense. This was not in the deal.]

“Trust me. Play along, it’ll get better. Just relax and let me pretense it for you until you see what’s happening. Sometimes in pretenses, you make things, uh, disharmonious, just for the fun of making them go better later.”

[This can happen: a disharmony precedes a good?]

“Uh, I’ll show you. For now, just go with this, okay? You’ll see.”

[Waiting.]

Mother smiles, not worried at all. “Listen, Raef, I’ve got a wonderful idea. Let’s go down to the bakery and splurge. I got really good tips yesterday; we can afford it. Go on, go get your jacket. We’ll walk. It’s a beautiful day.”

Raef runs and gets his denim jacket. It’s a really good one, faded denim with neat patches sewn all over it, old military patches, and ski resort patches, and baseball teams patches. He buys them or trades for them, and his mom always sews them on. She’s a really good mom. When he gets back to the kitchen, his mom has her favorite sweater on. It’s blue and really soft; Raef and his dad got it for her on her last birthday. The buttons are shaped like flowers. Raef takes her hand, and they go out together, letting the screen door slam behind them.

Connie watched John
through her faceplate, constantly aware that the thick transparency was all that stood between her and the great emptiness they worked in.

She loved it.

John’s gloved fingers looked thick and awkward as he worked the catches that secured the access panels. Connie was still impressed with how quickly he had diagnosed the malfunction. Her mind darted back to the moment the alarm had gone off on board the Evangeline. Even as it jerked her awake, John had cut it off. His voice on the intercom had sounded so calm. “Connie, we’ve got a satellite malfunction. Report immediately.”

She’d flung herself from her personal quarters, been in the command chamber in moments. Then she’d clung silently to a rung, heart thumping, as John swiftly requisitioned from Tug all the details of the satellite malfunction. He’d listened, and then as he tersely outlined his plan of action, even the sarcasm in Tug’s voice had faded and been replaced by respect. Almost relief, Connie had thought at the time.

She’d stood behind John as he called up the manual, and entered details of the malfunction. The computer had furnished them with seven possible problem areas. Connie had almost despaired, but John had quietly and competently narrowed it down to one. “Orientation sensor unit,” he’d said with quiet calm. “We have duplicate units. Merely a matter of replacing the bad one.” He’d called up the procedure, scanned it quickly, and then requested a printout of required tools and supplies.

He’d swiveled his lounger away from the screen and handed her the film. “Load these, and then perform these tasks,” he’d told her, and as he’d listed them, she’d felt a sneaking gratitude for the grinding hours of maintenance he’d made her put in. The equipment she’d loaded into the shuttle was familiar to her hands. She’d racked the modified suits with calm assurance that they were space-worthy and fitted well. Then there had been the argument with John; he hadn’t wanted her to go, he’d expected her to stay on the ship with Tug and just sit there and wait. She’d surprised herself with how insistent she’d been, and somehow, she’d made John let her go along. And as she’d boarded the shuttle and strapped herself in, it came to her that her heart was thudding not with the terror she’d once have felt, but with suppressed excitement.

Dammit, it was fun!

Something about John’s quiet assurance made it so.
She’d seconded his signal to Tug that they were ready to depart. The ceiling of the shuttle bay had opened and suddenly become the floor as Evangeline’s gondola gently ejected them. For long moments they’d drifted, shadowed by the immense bulk of the gondola, and the impossibly larger form of Evangeline herself. As they became a separate unit, Connie had suddenly perceived what it was to be a captain of a Beastship. It was this quiet competence, this depth of knowledge and the ability to make decisions based on it, that differentiated between her and John. Not merely the titles of captain and crew, as she would have told anyone a few months ago. This ability to handle an emergency as if it were a planned and expected part of the mission was what set him apart from her. This was the skill he’d been trying to foster in her when he’d demanded that she see what needed doing and do it, rather than waiting for his commands.

Her respect had grown as he’d piloted the shuttle to a position alongside the recalcitrant satellite, and held steady as she operated the grappler that plucked it from its orbit and then secured it to the work deck of the shuttle. She’d caught herself grinning at him as she suited up, and was almost unsurprised when he returned the smile. They’d checked each other’s suits, performing the safety ritual precisely to manual standards, but Connie had felt more than mere competence as John called off each checklist item and okay for it. Camaraderie.

Now as he lifted the access panel free and passed it to her, she wondered if he felt it, too. Maybe this was routine to him, but it was her first time outside of a ship when it hadn’t been carefully scheduled as maintenance or training. She clipped the panel to its retainer, knew without his saying what tool to hand him next. She felt competent, that was it, and it went to her head like a drug. A fierce pride she didn’t know she’d harbored lifted its head inside her. She tried to see his face through the double barrier of her faceplate and his. You’ve made this change in me, she thought at him, and wondered if he knew she was aware of it, and how it made her feel. He glanced up at her as he passed a tool back to her, and though his features were indistinct inside his helmet, she felt the impact of his gaze.

She found herself grinning foolishly as he held out his
hand for the orientation sensor unit and she passed it to him. A team. Somehow they’d become a team, and he sensed it as strongly as she did. She took the defective unit and placed it in the net bag for repair or recycling. She watched as he snapped the new one into place, secured the connections, and then used a probe to verify that all contacts were good and the unit operational. It seemed but moments later that they refastened the access panel. It had all gone precisely and perfectly.