In the Company of Others (3 page)

Pardell turned out to be pleasant enough, Terran-norm of course, with deep blue seas cut into thirds by narrow, ribbonlike continents. If those continents looked a bit regular, well, everyone knew terraformers had budgets, too. Only one continent showed significant amounts of green; these were patchy areas, as though the terraformers hadn't bothered to finish their work, or as if they'd tried a variety of seeds and only some had survived.

They'd not had time for more than a glance during approach before clouds obscured the view. Gabby sat, silent, licking beads of sweat from her upper lip, She checked the shuttle's fuel as surreptitiously as possible. Jer wouldn't be the first expectant father to have forgotten to top up the tanks. She didn't intend to stay downworld any longer than it would take for the recorders to prove her baby's citizenship. Her eyes glistened with anticipation and her thoughts focused inward again.

They landed without incident. Jer was a careful pilot under any circumstances, and now, with his anxiety for his wife and unborn child, the craft touched the grass-coated ground with a master's gentleness. He grabbed the equipment they'd packed weeks before, eyeing Gabby's pale, determined face with a decidedly suspicious look. “Can you make it?” he asked. “Do you want the grav belt?”

Gabby didn't think this deserved any of the air she was drawing in lightly through her nose, carefully opposing the rhythm of her contractions. She stood and held Jer's arm in an ironlike grip. He helped her to the air lock, managing somehow not to bang her legs with any of the bags he carried.
Not that she'd notice.

The air was warm, heady with the smell of earth and life. Triumphant, Gabby allowed herself a deep breath and doubled over in pain. Jer dropped everything, put his arm around her shoulders to keep her from falling to her knees. A liquid warmth gushed between her legs, almost immediately turning into a chill dampness. “Timing . . . was never better, Jer ...” she managed to say past the smile the urgent pain couldn't erase.
At last, at last. . . .

Jer wiped his hands dry, contented to his bones. His shoulders ached. His wrist throbbed, especially where Gabby's nails had broken through the skin. What strength she had! Everything had happened so quickly. He'd have to watch this on the shuttle's vid recording when they were back on the ship.

The seed-heavy tips of the grass rustled together with every breeze, as if to remind them where they were. He drew the fragrant air in through his nostrils, trying to remember the last time he'd been to Earth and if it had smelled this wonderful.

Welcome to your world
, Jer thought to himself as he sat beside Gabby, watching her sleep. The tiny life curled between her breasts squirmed slowly, as if delighted to find no obstructions to the stretching of his limbs. Jer stroked his son's fist, then was amazed that such a tight wrapping of fingers could uncurl so quickly, like a flower opening. He felt love welling up from his heart, love such as he'd never known before in all his life. Tears slid unnoticed down his cheeks.

LOVE.
Jer sobbed, his heart near to breaking with the emotion. Deep, warm, rich, the future, the past, his eternity, Gabby's fulfillment—all of this beat through him, against him. The baby's head teetered and flopped. Jer saw his son's eyes, not quite focused, darkly blue. Another surge of love crushed him.
LOVE.

Gabby moaned in her sleep. Her eyes flashed opened, stared at him, pits of terror.
FEAR.
Sharp, ice, futility, ending—her arms tightened convulsively over the baby. Somehow Jer managed to free himself from the paralysis locking his muscles long enough to fling himself over them both. The fear faded back.

There was time for Gabby to meet his eyes, for the knowledge in hers to break his heart. He drew in the sweetness of her breath, the wet newness of the baby. Then
LOVE
came again, and crushed them utterly.

The Quill were on Pardell after all.

SAMMIE'S Tavern had been several meters of access corri - dor in the days before the Quill—before Thromberg Station welded shut every second bulkhead to make more rooms throughout its Outward Five levels, moving the crush of homeless into space formerly intended for industrial use and warehousing. Across the hole approximating a doorway in one wall, its cut, jagged edges hammered into a safer smoothness, Sammie's boasted a fabric curtain to keep in the fragrance of stale beer and staler patrons, a token separation accomplishing very little at this time of station-day, when odd-cycle work crews were stumbling off-shift and even-cycle were staggering on. Still, visual barriers gave the illusion of privacy, luxury in a place where there was almost none.

The tavern, as always, was packed so full it was difficult to see if there were chairs and tables, let alone find them. The press of flesh to flesh eased in only two places. One marked the narrow aisle behind the bar, necessary allowance so the bartenders could attempt to keep up with the demand with about as much success as someone bailing an ocean with cupped hands. The other opening, less immediately obvious but as well defined, was the room given one man, presently leaning against the counter like the rest.

It was an unconscious distancing, a habit familiar enough to be unnoticed by all, including the dark-haired man at its core. At first glance, he might have been any immie or stationer seeking a moment's oblivion. His clothes were regular-issue tunic and pants, well-patched, with neater repair work than some and cleaner than most. Unusual in this crowd, though not unique, he wore snug-fitting gloves. His spare frame was slightly less than standard height, and lean to the point of almost gaunt—but then again, so were the majority of his companions. Few fattened or grew full height on station-rations. The unremarkable man slouched comfortably over his drink, deep in conversation with the bartender. It was only the instinctive way others avoided touching him, even when it required significant effort, that set him apart: a nonmalicious avoidance, as though he formed a natural hazard, like the edge of a cliff.

“Six dibs?” the man was asking, the words rising with disbelief, his hazel eyes squinted half-closed as though that was all he wanted to view of Sammie's thick girth, mismatched teeth, and amply-stained apron. “When d'you start importing Earth lager, Sammie? Four's pushing hard enough for the watery swill you're pouring down our throats.”

There were cheerful comments and nods of agreement from the men and women crushed elbow-to-elbow along the thin, tarnished metal bar, as well as those leaning companionably on their shoulders. The bartender shrugged irritably. “Prices' up for ever'thin' Pardell. If'n you'd show up more of'n, you'd be aware—”

Pardell flashed a sudden grin, crinkling the skin around his eyes while stripping years from his thin features. “If I showed up more often, Sammie, I'd be even more destitute than the miserable stationer scum you let in here—”

“Keep 'r up, Pardell—” Sammie growled warningly. Stationers were not only outnumbered everywhere on Thromberg by immigrants, or immies—the very people they'd been originally been brought here to assist—there was no longer any obvious way to distinguish the two unless you accessed an individual's registration data by retinal scan. Or asked, which would likely earn you a bloodied nose.

The blending had been deliberate, reconciliation and survival in one. The first, and deadliest, Ration Riot had surged throughout the station two weeks after the partial collapse of the still-new hydroponics system. As blame flew down every possible corridor on wings of fear, everyone's face grew pinched with hunger; it only added fuel when stationers were accused of hoarding. The match was lit when rumor—the only way news traveled through the station—spread that only those immies willing to be sterilized and become stationers would continue to be fed. The uprising was mercifully brief and contained to the Outward Five levels. It was mercilessly violent and consumed too many innocent lives.

In the anguished aftermath, enough truth was found behind both rumors that stationers throughout Thromberg gathered in quiet, somber groups, unable to meet the eyes of passing immies, talking in hushed tones about how the real enemies were the Quill and the blindness of Earth. Station insignia started disappearing: from a tunic on this man, from the coats of all the meds in the infirmary on night shift, suddenly gone from every stationer working in Outward Five and elsewhere. Unorganized, unsanctioned, and oddly healing—no one commented out loud, but the tensions between stationer and immigrant slowly eased. Eventually, only the original station records remained, kept to make sure everyone received their fair share of work and food.

Good intentions aside, each knew the other—for better and worse—and the final generation of immie and stationer kids grew up knowing precisely how to start each other's tempers flying.

“Aw, Aaron . . . don't you try and pick a fight again,” this loudly insincere complaint came from Pardell's right-hand neighbor, a stationer named Hugh Malley.

They'd been friends even before being orphaned by the third and most recent of the Ration Riots, nine years earlier, a friendship presently belied by the bigger man's fierce scowl. Work in the recycling depot had laid its characteristic curve of muscle over already massive shoulders and barrel chest, making Malley's share of the bar surface necessarily greater than most. He took advantage of that space to thump down one huge, scarred fist with sufficient emphasis to spill the frothy heads from most of the containers foolishly left sitting in front of their owners. Grumbles about this waste were conspicuously absent. “No fights,” Malley repeated. “We owe Sammie here dibs for the last ruckus. You know I hate cleaning up this place.”

Pardell blinked innocently. “You hate cleaning up anywhere,” he replied, raising his own voice to be heard over the growing din as those behind began murmuring in anticipation. Sure enough, an instant later the bar's bell sounded and, automatically, all of those presently leaning on the bar, including Malley and Pardell, snatched up their drinks and straightened to let others squeeze by them. Sammie and his coworkers went into a frenzy, collecting dib chits from those moving out of immediate reach as well as from those newly arrived and impatient.

Malley settled his heavy forearms companionably on the shoulders of the two men now in his former place, neither arguing beyond a strangled grunt. Pardell toasted the nervous-looking immie in front of him, relieving any concern he might be drunk enough to try for the same service. The tavern settled back into its comforting babble of voices and laughter as smoothly as if nothing had happened at all.

Smooth, because it had to be
, Pardell told himself, helplessly sliding into one of those detached, intense moments of thought that consumed him every so often, no matter what he was doing, or where he was. He usually tried to turn the feeling from aloof to amused; he usually failed, settling—as now—for a mild sense of dislocation.

While it lasted, it was as if the tavern suddenly expanded along each axis; the people crammed inside faceless and strange, any movement slowed, every sound stilled.
This bar
, Pardell observed, with no choice but to accept perception—
was a monument to human adaptability.
There was no doubt the overcrowding on this and the other stations had produced its share of nightmares—
he'd lived some
—but it had also produced ways of coping. Queuing was a lifestyle, manners an essential skill. There was a seething, reasonably efficient economy based on barter and turnabout. In fact, the entire station operated that way, half keeping the reverse daylight/night cycle from the rest, allowing the available space and equipment to be used around the clock. It had become the stuff of romance as well as convenience, given there was someone in every bed no matter the time.
It did make it awkward keeping track of anyone on reverse hours—

“Rejoining us any time soon, Aaron?” Malley's rumble interrupted Pardell's thoughts, startling him back to a noisy, companionable reality. The big man suggestively held up his own container, a piece of pipe of generous depth, one end welded shut. Intricate etchings covered its surface, extraordinarily fine work considering the size of the hands responsible. But then Malley's appearance was the last thing to judge him by, as most in their section knew. A ferocious intellect that absorbed anything and everything in reach, off-shift Malley earned half again as many dibs teaching as he did as a laborer. There hadn't been a subject yet which he didn't know—or couldn't learn—well enough to keep ahead of his students. Rumor had it, those joining Malley's work shift had to pass an exam.
It was more accurate
, Pardell smiled to himself as he considered his friend fondly,
to say only those willing to debate anything from astrophysics to poetry while heaving scrap metal managed to keep sane.

Pardell obediently raised his container, a white plastic cup, to Malley's. In another place and time, it would have been disposable. Here and now, despite its plain appearance, the cup was a prized possession; its ship markings,
Merry Mate II
, proof of a heritage few could claim and none could replace. “I was just thinking, my friend,” Pardell protested mildly after sipping his beer. “There's no law against it.”

Malley wasn't letting it go, turning to look Pardell in the eyes. His own, dark brown beneath a broad forehead and straight-line brows, were clouded. “There's no law against butting in line, but the last person we saw do it ended up in pieces. Messy, little pieces. You know better than to make people nervous, Aaron. Going all spacey in a crowded room is one of those nervous-making things. Okay?”

Nervous.
Pardell looked down at his gloved hands, trying to think if there had been an instant of his life when he didn't have to listen to warnings, make the effort to blend with others. Suddenly, the boisterous crowd, the heat and smells, the sounds—
everything
—became overwhelmingly real. Pardell inhaled slowly and carefully through his nostrils, fighting the irrational urge to gasp for air, recognizing the signs with helpless frustration and more than a little disappointment.
He'd overstayed his tolerance.
“Time I headed home, anyway,” he announced, pouring the rest of his beer into Malley's as nonchalantly as possible. The reminder hadn't offended him; Malley was right. Odd behavior wasn't tolerated, not here, where getting along meant being safely predictable and following the unspoken rules.