This Alien Shore Read online

  She passed a Frisian, whose skin was covered with overlapping scales, like the armor of some ancient Earth reptile. Then an Iotha, whose facial features looked as if they had been randomly scrambled on a large, misshapen skull. There was a pair of Variants from Hellsgate, whose long, emaciated limbs twitched constantly in some kinesthetic simulacrum of speech. They’re all human, she told herself, as a Variant from Gehenna looked her over with ill-concealed disdain. She shivered. Every single one of them is a human being. The differences are only superficial. But that wasn’t quite true, and she knew it. There were the Lakis, whose malformed brains were barely capable of human thought. And the Yins, whose crippled right hemispheres squeezed forth psychic fantasies even as their withered left legs dragged behind them. And of course the Guerans—most terrifying of all!—whose mental instabilities mimicked all of Earth’s ancient madnesses, who had no more in common with each other than she had with these Variants. Those were true aliens in every sense of the word, and if they looked like real Terrans, that was only an accident of biology.

  She took a turn before reaching the first common area, avoiding the nearest marketplace node and its crowds. Once she had dared to visit there—only once—and she had instantly regretted it. She might have been born on Earth, but she was habitat-raised; by the time she was ten, she had all but forgotten the teeming cities of Terra, with their constant press of flesh and their dirt and palpable sense of hair-trigger anxiety. Perhaps at a later date she would be able to deal with such a crowd—savoring its energy, perhaps, admiring its drive, their purpose—but at this point in her life all it would inspire was panic. As she had learned to her shame once, in this very place.

  She glanced in the main portal as she passed by the circular node, at the goods of a thousand stations and habitats which hung from display trees, from walls, even from the arms of a few enthusiastic vendors. It was said that if a product existed anywhere in human space, someone on the metroliner would sell it. She could well believe that. Spider-silk scarves fluttered on their display racks as passengers of the great ship passed beneath them, fingering delicate jewels from Hellsgate, bittersweet candies from Station Aires, music cubes from Candida. And headsets. Nearly all the passengers from the up-and-out wore them as a matter of course, more as a statement of fashion (Jamisia suspected) than for any real purpose. She caught a glimpse of one woman with a golden vulture perched atop her head, its delicately engraved wing feathers curling around her ears; another wore an intricate web inlaid with jewels, that sparkled as she moved. Lines of silver swept back from one man’s temples in surreal coils, and another man, more whimsical than most, wore a pair of crystal horns jutting out from behind his ears. If the ship had been near one of the outspace stations, the style would have made sense, for the headsets could have connected their owners to the outernet, and through that to a billion other minds and data sources ... but here they were little more than a bizarre form of ornament, all the more fantastic because of their uselessness.

  Beyond the market node was a series of flyways. She paused for a moment, hesitating, then opened the hatch of the nearest unoccupied tube and slid herself inside. Like so many of the metroliner’s flyways this one was designed as much for divertissment as transportation, and as she pushed herself off into the no-G field, the clear walls made it seem as if she were launching herself into the very darkness of space itself. Beside her a silver catch-cord hummed, inviting her grip, but years in the habitats had made the flyways second nature to her, and with a few well-placed kicks along the joints of the walls she worked up enough velocity to send herself hurtling down the center of the tube without it. Stars were spread out on all sides of her, punctuated by the sinuous coils of the metroliner’s tail. There was peace in the flyways, albeit of a tenuous nature—as if all her voices were equally hushed by the beauty of this place, and by its wonder. But it was a short-lived peace, that gave way even as a series of bright red rings warned her to slow down. She dragged her soft-soled shoes against the walls of the tube, still not grabbing hold of the catch-cord by her side. Her tutor had once said she was like a cat in her adaptation to no-G, but in fact she was simply a teenager—and like all habitat teenagers she had participated in enough forbidden races and games and pranks in the flyways that using them was second nature to her.

  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.”

  Get away from him!

  You’re asking for trouble, Jamisia....

  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.

  He’ll find out too much!

  He already knows too much!

  We’re safer alone!

  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.

  We.

  Found 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.

  Want to come?

  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?

  The 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 ...

  “Be careful if you talk,” he cautioned in a whisper. “The conduits amplify sound.”

  ... beyond that was a vast chamber filled with highly decorated kiosks, clearly a marketplace of some kind. Only here there were no brightly patterned
clothes, no racks of jewelry, no alien cosmetics—no items of personal adornment at all, she noted. Smells of food wafted up to the air duct they were hidden in, exotic scents that stung the nostrils. Electronic equipment hung on fine wires from vendors’ racks. Men in simple dress stopped to taste, to test, to haggle, and she heard snatches of at least a dozen languages. Aside from the fact that all wore cloth headdresses of some kind, either elaborately wrapped turbans or long fringed cloths, they looked like the men of any other marketplace.

  “Why is this place off-limits?” she asked in a whisper. A woman had entered the chamber—at least, it seemed to be a woman—dark cloth obscuring her face and body, with only hands and eyes visible. The robes she wore were clearly from some hi-G environment, where gravity could be relied upon to keep long garments in place. What would she wear in a flyway? Jamisia wondered.

  “Their religious law states that true believers can’t be ruled by those outside the faith,” he whispered back. “Most modern sects’ll make an exception for this ship—it is only a transportation vehicle, after all—but these Traditionalists consider the metroliner an independent station, and therefore they can’t take up residence here as long as an unbeliever is in charge. It’s a tough call, since their religion demands that every one of them has to travel to Earth at some time to visit their founder’s city, and this is the only way there.”

  She was confused. “But it’s okay if they’re all living together in one place?”

  “It’s not just that they’re together here,” he explained. “This whole sector’s under their control. They follow their own laws here, and don’t have to recognize those of the ship, or of Earth. They even have their own leader, who can administrate whatever manner of justice he sees fit; the Captain-General has no authority. And no one from the outside will interfere with them, even if Earth laws are violated.”

  She turned from the marketplace scene to look at him; his dark eyes glittered in the reflected light from below. “That’s incredible,” she whispered.