Children of Hope (36 page)

“Don’t you dare.”

“Sir, this is insane. You might as well discuss philosophy with a shark.”

“Any ideas, Randy?”

“No, sir.”

“Edgar, have Jess scan the passenger lists. Any linguists?”

A few seconds pause.
“Nothing remotely like, sir. Three journalists and a specialist on puter psychology.”

“All right, let’s be sure it isn’t hostile. Randy, to the hatch.” Facing the outrider, Father began a slow retreat.

At the hatch, he keyed the caller. “Boritz, withdraw to section six. We’re coming through.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

I shook my head. The sailor should have demanded permission to stay in five, to protect his Captain.

The alien remained where it was. Quivering. Always the goddamn quivering. Sweat trickled down my spine.

“Mr Tolliver, alert Dr Romez. We’ll need Class A decon. Blood samples from both of us, first thing, to check for virus.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“When we’re through, open the inner airlock hatch. Let it go if it wants.”

“And what if it decides to melt through the outer hatch? We’ll decompress.”

“Only the one section. It can do that anytime it wants by melting through an outer bulkhead.”

“I suppose, but … aye aye, sir.”

“We’ll take a cabin in five for a day or so, just to be sure. If we’re infected, I don’t want to spread it.” Father set the pistol to midrange, handed it to me, turned his back on the alien. He keyed the hatch.

It slid open.

We walked through. Behind us, the outrider waited.

Quivering.

Decontamination was every bit as unpleasant as before. They ran our blood and breath samples through analyzers. No viruses, but Dr Romez and his staff were exceedingly thorough nonetheless. No one touched us who wasn’t suited, and Lord God knew what they did with the suits afterward.

I’d peeled off my suit at the first opportunity, ignoring Father’s protest. “I’ll take my chances with you, and there’s no use saying otherwise. Punish me if you must.” I held my breath; for a moment he seemed ready to do just that.

At length, he sighed. “A father’s job is to protect you.”

“Not from this.”

To my amazement, he nodded, as if he understood.

Freshly showered, in clean clothes, I found myself ravenously hungry. Stewards in suits brought us trays; everyone who met with us had to pass through rigorous decon. In the old days, on
Challenger
and other ships, viruses introduced by outriders had decimated passengers and crew.

We sat side by side, on a bunk. “Now what, Mr—um, Father?”

“You know, P. T. called me that.”

“Who’s Peetee?”

“Philip. My son. I was Father. Fath, for short.”

“Fath. I like that.” It acknowledged the relationship, but wasn’t silly, like “Pop” would be. On the other hand, it didn’t award the parent excessive dignity. Yes, “Fath” had zarks.

“I liked it too,” he said.

“Why do you call him Peetee?”

“Initials. Philip Tyre Seafort. Named after a joey I sailed with, many years ago.”

“We’ve a town called Tyre.”

“Your father Derek named it that, to please me.”

“Did it?”

“Very much. Philip Tyre was a troubled boy, but in the end he was magnificent. He rammed
Challenger
’s launch into a fish. His sacrifice saved us.”

“So, as I asked, now what?”

“We’ll try again.”

“Tonight, or in the morning?”

“Tonight,” he said. “I’ll go alone.”

“The hell you will.”

He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, dragged me protesting to the head. In a moment, he had a handful of liquid soap at my mouth. Some of it got in. I struggled, but he was stronger than I’d have guessed. “I won’t have foul language!”

I spat, over and again. The taste was horrible.

“Understood?”

I was too shocked for words. After all we’d been through …

“You’d best answer.” His tone held warning.

“I hate you!”

“That’s your privilege. Acknowledge what I told you.”

For a long moment I was silent. Rage, hate, Lord knew what else battled for dominance. At last, shaky, I lurched to my feet, spun away. “I agreed to be your son. I won’t go back on it.”

“I’m glad.”

“But I wish I could.” My tone was spiteful.

“Do you really? Tell truth.”

“Yes!” In a recess of my mind, Dad’s image glowered. My ears began to redden; the Carrs didn’t lie. “No. I don’t want out.”

“That’s better.”

“I’ll make you a bargain.”

“No bargains.”

“I’m not accustomed …” I gathered myself. “With Anth I got used to freedom. I’ll try, I’ll really do my best, on all the small things you want. Like how I talk. But on whether you go off and risk dying without me, I’m part of the decision. We’re family, right? We face this risk together, or being family is a lie.”

He put his head in his hands.

I braced myself. “Sir …” It would be hard. “Fath, I apologize. I won’t use that language again.” My cheeks flamed.

I waited out eternity.

“Very well. We’ll rest a bit, before we visit the outrider.”

I’d won.

Or, had he?

Again, I clambered into a vacuum suit; Fath insisted on it and nothing I said would budge him. An extra layer of protection, he called it. He tousled my hair before securing my helmet.

The outrider was at the far end of the section.

Abruptly the alien flitted toward us. Fath had just time to thrust me behind him. I raised the pistol, too late.

It skittered to a stop, inches from Fath, and melted to a near puddle. Dots and colors flowed, in no apparent pattern.

Avoiding its touch, Fath got down on his knees, then his belly. After a moment, he stood, slapped the bulkhead.

The alien reconstituted itself.

“Let’s try math,” said Fath. He held out his hand for my pistol, burned dots into the deck.

• + • =••

Nothing.

••• + •
=
••••

The alien melted onto the diagrams, reconstituted itself. We waited. It waited too. “Does it understand negation?”

•• < > •••

The outrider covered the etching, re-formed itself. No other response.

I said, “Draw us.”

“With a pistol? I might manage a stick figure.”

“Don’t be silly. Drawing is a zark.” I reached for the pistol. Astonished, he let me take it.

In the woods, when Anth had taught me to shoot, I’d carved smoking initials, drawings, maps into the boles of sturdy generas. The Stadholder had dropped his adult dignity and joined in.

I knelt, wishing I didn’t have to work through thick gloves. Carefully, I drew a bulky figure with a big round helmet. I pounded my chest. I drew another figure alongside, as human as I could make it. I worked at nose, ears, legs. When I was done, I stood, put my palm on Fath’s chest.

The outrider quivered, as if about to launch itself. I’d have a moment of agony, no more. Heart thudding, I braced myself.

It sagged into an ooze, covered my artwork.

I whispered, “Why does it do that? Can’t it see?”

“It must. Else, how would it know we’d finished drawing?”

“What’s it trying to tell us by rolling on it?”

“Look out, son!” Fath yanked me to safety. The deck-plate smoked and sizzled. He grabbed the caller at the hatch. “Janks! It’s burning through the deck. Be ready to—”

The alien reared, resumed its irregular shape. On the deck plate where it had lain, new lines.

We examined the etching.

Fath leaned against the bulkhead, closed his eyes. When he looked up, his face was serene. “Wonderful,” he said.

Dots, swirls, a line here and there. I said doubtfully, “It ought to mean something, but …” I shrugged. Gibberish.

“It means,” said Fath, “that it’s trying to communicate.”

Again, Class A decontamination. Almost, it made me want to let Fath visit with the outrider alone. Blood extraction, an embarrassing and thorough nude shower under the watchful eyes of med techs, antiseptic spray, irradiation … That Fath also went through it didn’t help much.

By unspoken agreement, Fath and I shared our section five cabin for the night. It was his idea, and I reacted with studied nonchalance, but there was no way I could have slept alone with an outrider quivering in the next section.

Our evening had been a frustrating failure. We’d tried more diagrams, gotten no response. The alien rolled on its etching once more, but I couldn’t see any change. We’d scored several meters of the deck plate, run the pistol’s charge down to the warning beep, with no progress. Abruptly, as my yawns threatened to dislocate my jaw, Fath called a halt, ordered the inner airlock hatch left open in case the alien wanted out.

Tolliver, suited, came to visit. “I’m willing to take the chance, sir.” His fingers toyed with his helmet clasp.

“Absolutely not. And what are you doing off the bridge?”

“Frand and Tad Anselm have the watch. They’re reliable.”

Fath grunted.

“The Stadholder is growing restless. He wants to go ground-side.”

“Because of the fish?”

“He didn’t say, but I doubt it.” Tolliver tried to scratch his nose, forgetting his helmet. “He doesn’t seem a fearful type. More likely his political concerns.”

I said, “Anth’s not afraid.” Not of anything. He was like Dad.

Fath scowled at me. “And who asked you?” But his tone was benign.

“He’s my nephew.”

“Shush. Where’s the fish?”

“Stationary,” said Tolliver. “About a hundred fifty meters off portside.”

“Alive?”

“I think so. Its dots and blobs are moving.”

“Waiting for our friend,” Fath said.

“A pity to make it wait longer. Sir, let’s put an end to this.”

“Soon, perhaps. Very well, we needn’t keep Anthony waiting. Level 3 lock is on the starboard side. Who aboard is a competent pilot besides Mikhael?”

“I am,” said Tolliver. “Sarah Frand. Andrew Ghent.”

“Too young. Send Frand. No, wait a minute. Where’s the shuttle that brought our crewmen up?”

“Moored outside our starboard launch bay.”

“Very well, then. Send Anthony groundside, no need to transfer at the Station. Randy, would you like a farewell?”

I shook my head. “We already have, twice.”

“Tell the pilot he’s to make a very wide detour around the fish. And give the Station permission to fire at once, if the fish moves on the shuttle.”

“Aye aye, sir. How long will you keep up this …” A gesture, that took in the entire section. “… this farce?”

“Edgar, if we can communicate …”

“What’s to be gained? We still have no choice but exterminate them. They destroy Fusing ships.”

“We’ll see. Keep watch ’til the Stadholder’s safe, then get some sleep. And call down to the Chief. Have him send up a supply of copper plates and an etching tool. We’re going to run out of deck for drawing.”

“Why not pencil and paper?”

“I think the outrider needs to taste our words, not see them.”

“Taste your words.” Tolliver’s face took on a look of suffering, which Fath ignored.

“Just do it, Edgar.”

Aye aye, sir.

When he’d gone, I yawned prodigiously, looked wistfully at the bed.

“Not quite yet, son.”

“What now?”

“Have you read today?”

“Read? Well, no, but we don’t have your Bible.”

“Make do with this.” Fath plugged in his holovid, tapped the keys. In a moment, the screen filled with words.

I scrolled, more or less at random. Reluctantly, I cleared my throat. I’d never get to curl beneath the sheets, unless I read to his satisfaction.
“O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches.”

He smiled.
“So is this great and wide sea …”

“
Wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great
b
easts. There go the ships; there is that leviathan, whom Thou hast made to play therein.
Fath, what’s a leviathan?”

“A fish. A great fish.”

Our eyes met.

“
Whom Thou hast made to play therein.
Do you really think so, Fath?”

“He made all creatures. I can’t say I understand why.”

“There go the ships
…
”
My lips moved as I read to myself. There go the huge U.N. ships bravely out to the stars, and meet the “great beasts” He sent to kill them. Does it make sense? Does the Book describe reality, or insane fantasy?

“Read on, son.”

I bent my head, and did.

I begged and pleaded not to have to sweat in a vacuum suit, but Fath was adamant.

When the hatch was opened, I dragged in half a dozen large copper plates. Fath carried an etching stylus powered by a Valdez permabattery. In his pouch was a fully charged laser.

The outrider was waiting by our drawings. Again I stared at the meaningless blobs and lines it had created last night.

“Good morning,” said Fath, as if it understood.

I set down a plate, but the alien paid no attention. It skittered to the drawing I’d laboriously burned, of Fath and myself. Reducing itself, it enwrapped the drawing, “tasting” it.

We waited.

At length, the outrider reconstituted itself, hesitated, quivering. Then, abruptly, it dissolved into a blob on the deck.

God, I hated that. It gave me the chills.

At length, it drew itself up.

Where it had lain were lines, a meaningless, ovoid shape.

“Does it understand our drawing, Fath?”

The outrider’s skin swirled. Abruptly it collapsed again. The quivering blob on the deck exactly filled the ovoid shape.

Hair rose on my neck.

I pounded Fath’s back. “It understands! It drew itself!”

“Yes.” Moving stiffly, Fath sat himself on my sketch of him. After a moment he stood, pointed to himself over and again.

The alien skittered to its own drawing. A blob of protoplasm extended a foot or so toward its drawing, retracted. It did it again.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Fath murmured to himself as he drew. “Do you think it understands symbolic logic?” On one of our copper plates lying on the deck, Fath drew a small circle, inserted two eyes. “We need simpler drawings, something like a pictograph language, or we’ll never get anywhere.” At the base of his circle he drew a vertical line. His drawing looked like a face on a stick. Deliberately, he stood on it. Then he stood on the larger deck drawing of himself, then stepped back onto the copper plate. At last, done, he stepped back, put his arm around my shoulder.