This Alien Shore (10 page)

Where had she come to? A glance outside the base of the tube revealed an unknown arm of the metroliner, glittering with domiciles of alien design. In the distance was a clear node, some cultured garden or amusement center, that was open to the stars . . . she peered at it more closely, and seemed to see branches of some kind, a tree whose arms were wildly knotted, a surreal sculpture of bark and chlorophyll. There were bright lights set into the walls of the node which made it hard to see details of what was inside, small miniature suns. With a start she realized that she had seen this globe on her way in, and that she knew what it was. She dropped out of the flyway—stumbling a bit in the unexpectedly strong gravity of this arm—and then found herself another which pointed in the right direction.

Three flights and a short walk later, she was there. It was a garden, all right, one of the strangest the metroliner had to offer. In it there was but a single tree, a banyan from Earth, nurtured by enough false gravity and imitation sunlight that it would continue to grow. Except that the gravity changed, and the sunlamps moved, and the result was ... monstrous ... wonderful. Awesome, in the ancient, literal sense of the word.

The voices within her head were quieter than usual, still murmuring their endless commentary, but content for once to take a back seat to her own thoughts. It was a rare and precious respite. There were pathways winding through the foliage and she stepped carefully onto one, noting that several hung at angles no human could use until the G-source was shifted once again. The view was dizzying, with handrails and even stairs twisting about her head like some surrealistic sculpture. And all about her the tree grew, and pulsed, and lived. Roots poured down from a twisted trunk in a rippling brown stream, to pool on the floor of the walkway by her feet. Secondary and tertiary trunks coiled about the path, so that it seemed at any moment some vast spring might release its energy and fling her against the wall of the garden. There were hollows webbed with fine roots, like spider-weavings, and trunks that grew back on themselves, to merge in pools of fluid bark into figures of entwined complexity.

So intent was she upon exploring its intricacies that she almost didn't see the man behind her, almost wasn't aware that he had left the wall of the garden to follow her into the heart of it. Almost.

The voices screamed a sudden warning; in defiance of them, she turned slowly and calmly to see who it was that followed her. A teen, she guessed, hardly older than herself. He wore the uniform of the command crew, but he was surely too young to be a member of it; some relative, then, most likely a wayward son with too much time on his hands, anxious for the three-year journey to end. He was handsome, in a way, black hair and black eyes in a mid-toned face, expressive features, a lean but graceful frame ... with a start she realized where that thought was heading, and she forced her mind away from it, quickly. This was not a place to play dating games, she told herself.

“Sorry if I frightened you,” he said.

She managed to shrug. “Didn't think anyone was back there.”

He came a few steps closer—not too many, she noted, as if he sensed the potential for fear in her. Did he know that the voices could send her screaming from him in terror, with no more provocation on his part than an unguarded word, an innocent gesture? She flushed as she looked at him, and called up her wellseeker to release a small dose of sedative into her bloodstream. Just a bit. Sometimes you needed that.

“You're from red sector, aren't you?” She didn't answer; how did he know where she lived? Had she seen him before? “Justin Clarendon,” he offered, and he held out his hand to her.

No!
screamed one of the voices.
Don't touch him!
But it was a voice that always objected to human contact, regardless of context, and she had long since learned to ignore it.

“Jamisia ... ah, Capra.” She took his hand and shook it, surprised by its warmth. Something stirred in her that was not quite fear, a feeling that was strangely pleasant. “Clarendon ... isn't that ...”

“Yeah. Afraid so.” He hesitated a moment before releasing her hand. “Captain's kin.” An awkward grin creased his face, then; the black eyes sparkled. “Doesn't mean much, really. Except if I get into trouble. Then all hell breaks loose.”

For once, she agreed with the voices. It was dangerous to talk to anyone here, dangerous to interact. Look how close she had come just now to forgetting her new name. It could happen again, the name of Shido would leave her lips and then where would she be? But despite that, she couldn't bring herself to draw away. Instead she managed a smile and asked, “Do you do that often?” While the voices screamed their protest, ignored inside her head.

Again the grin. “Too often for her liking, I'm afraid.”

“I wouldn't have thought there was all that much trouble to get into.”

“Oh, yeah. Quite a bit.” He took a step closer; it brought a flush of warmth to the surface of her skin, and she found herself unable to move away. Or unwilling. In the E-month that she'd been on the metroliner she had avoided any prolonged human contact, with the result that she was starving for company. Surely a few minutes, a few words, couldn't hurt. “There are places off limits to any Earth human, all locked and guarded tight. Penalty's high for sightseeing there.”

“But you've been there?”

He grinned. “Now, I couldn't admit that without getting into trouble again, could I?”

Despite herself she smiled. He was warm, he was winning, and in another time and another place she might have been interested in him for more than a fleeting conversation. But in this time and place it was dangerous to get close to anyone, and so she forced herself not to cock her head to one side the way boys seemed to like, not to smile in a way that could be deemed an invitation, not to take that tiny step forward and brush her fingers against his arm as she spoke. But the urge to do so was there, distinctly so. Almost refreshing in its normalcy.

Yes, he had seen her before. That much became clear as he talked to her. He had seen her, he said, and wondered about her, and delved into the great ship's records to find out who she was. Apparently there were few passengers in her age range who traveled alone, and those who did usually had to sell their freedom to pay for their travel. But she was clearly traveling alone, and she wasn't wealthy—or at least lacked the overt signs of wealth—nor was she working her way through the three years' passage. So she intrigued him.. He had followed her. And now he had all the signs of someone who would like to know her better ... and oh, how she hungered for such attention! But the danger was too great, she told herself. She didn't dare get close to anyone. Least of all this self-possessed youth with the dark sparkling eyes, in whose presence she could so easily forget herself.

“Listen,” she said at last—forcing the words out reluctantly, forming each syllable with effort—“I really do need to go back to my rooms, there are things I have to take care of....”

“I'll go with you.”

“No! I ... no.” She was stumbling over the words now, wincing at her own awkwardness. Couldn't she manage any better than this? “I need ... I have things to do....”

He nodded slowly, digesting the evasion. Then he said, quietly, “I'd like to see you again, Jamie.”

Color rose to her face. “I don't know. It's not ... that is, I can't ...” But there was no comfortable lie this time for her to take refuge in; the words trailed off into an awkward silence.

“I take it that's not a ‘no?'

She drew in a deep breath, then shook her head slowly. “No,” she whispered. “It's not a ‘no.'

He grinned. “I'll just have to tempt you then. Find something on this ship that you can't do without me.”

Why are you so interested? she wanted to ask. What do you see in me that makes you care? But instead she merely nodded, ever so slightly. “Yes,” she whispered. “That would do it.”

Danger danger danger!
the voices trilled.

Only later, when she had returned to the reassuring isolation of her own rooms, did she realize just how strange those last comments were. And though the oddness was a minor thing, for some reason it sent a shiver down her spine.
We are safer alone....

Before, the voices had always addressed her directly, or else they argued with each other. Never was there any hint of unity among them. Never any sense of identity beyond that of random fragments, flitting in and out of existence within her brain.

How much power a single pronoun could have, she thought. Just one word. Not even a long one. And yet it frightened her, and she didn't understand why.

F
ound a way into Mohammed's City,
the E-note said.
Want to come? J.C.

There was no reference to such a place in the ship's database, at least not by that name. Which didn't mean that it didn't exist. The name of the “city” could be newly chosen, not yet entered into the ship's log. Or it could be a slang term, not deemed official enough to be worthy of electronic note.
Found a way into Mohammed's City.
That implied that normally one would be kept out. That implied that even the vehicles normally available to the son of the Captain-General were not enough to gain access to this place. A special means had to be found.

She stared at the words for a long, long time, knowing what her answer should be. For a week she had avoided all public spaces, afraid of meeting him again. Her dreams during that time had been disturbing, some filled with visions of Shido in flames, others so overtly sexual that she woke up shaking, shamed by the images. She had experienced such intense nightmares before, of course; they were part and parcel of her life. Usually it was after such dreams that she found strange things placed in her room, or friends made references to things she had said that she had no memory of ever saying. It was as if the borderline between waking and sleeping became blurred for a time, and her nightmares bled into real life.

So there was every reason to be afraid. Every reason to avoid human contact, lest someone detect her strangeness, her
otherness,
and ban her from the ainniq. Mental aberration was no more acceptable than physical infection, she knew that, and the Guerans screened all emigrants for the latter. What would happen if she reached the waystation, only to be sent back to Earth along with the metroliner?

So she should have told him no. She had every reason to. And as for reasons to answer
yes . . .
only his face. His eyes. Her insufferable boredom. Not enough, surely. She knew better. Right?

But the words formed as if of their own accord. A stranger's words, written without her conscious volition.

Love to,
they said.
Where should I meet you?

T
he tunnel was cramped, as befit a conduit meant for air and not for people. If she picked her head up too far, she banged it on the surface overhead, and crawling was more of a lizardlike motion than anything for which human limbs were intended. At least there were intersections where she could pull up alongside him and catch her breath; throughout most of the journey they were forced to progress single file, and she was hard pressed to keep up with his obviously practiced slithering.

At last they came to a place where the conduit widened out, and he pressed himself against one side to let her come up alongside him. Ahead of them was a grate of some fine synthetic substance. Beyond that ...