"I've looked at all the data from the space sats," Karim said. As Faisal had promised, his English was excellent, with a slightly guttural accent that lent his words authority, despite his youth. Gail estimated his age as thirty, although slim and clean-shaven men always looked younger than they really were.
"My conclusions," Karim continued, "are of course only tentative. This is wholly alien technology. But I want to tell you my thoughts about the ship."
Gail looked for Mueller and was startled to see him standing beside the bunker, behind them and to the left, holding a gun. He had put himself on guard duty. But a gun ... oh, my God, were they going to have a repeat of the shootings? She turned to Jake, who was already ahead of her. He whispered, "Shipley says Mueller's okay."
"I know that!" she whispered back.
Jake patted her arm: Mueller is safe. Gail wasn't so sure. Jake seemed to have regained his assurance just as she was losing hers.
Karim continued, oblivious. "The ship resembles the embodiment of a theory that has existed in physics for two hundred years but remained only a theory. It's called the McAndrew Drive, after the Scots physicist who first proposed it, Arthur Morton McAndrew. Put simply, it tackles the problem of accelerating at more than, say, three gees without pulping the people aboard into jelly.
"Theoretically, you could accelerate at, for instance, a hundred gees without feeling it at all, if you could balance the force of acceleration with an equal pull of sufficient gravity in the opposite direction. They would cancel each other out, and the passengers would feel as if they were in free fall. That's what I think the alien mother ship does. See, it is shaped like this."
Karim held up a data storage device, a thick flat crystal disk with a hole in the middle. He stuck a long twig into the hole, gripping it at one end.
"You see, the living quarters are inside my thumb. The quarters are a capsule that can move freely up and down along this shaft ... like this, closer or farther away from the disk.
"The disk is made of some material we can only imagine, a material with enormous density, trillions of tons in a disk a hundred meters or more across and perhaps one meter thick. To balance that much gravitational force, the life capsule—that's my thumb, remember—starts well away from the disk. As you accelerate the disk away from the passengers, you move the life capsule closer, so increased gravitational pull always balances the increased acceleration. Of course, the life capsule must change shape, bowing at the edges, as it moves closer to the disk, to compensate for force differentiation."
Karim peered at them, as if to decide whether they understood.
Gail didn't. She kept watching Mueller from the corner of her eye.
George said, "But where do you get the energy to power the drive? I'm no physicist, but wouldn't you need a lot more than you could carry, even if you started consuming the disk to convert mass to energy?"
"Yes!" Karim said, beaming at George as upon a particularly bright pupil. "So we don't know where the ship gets its energy! My guess would be from the vacuum. The vacuum state yields a very high figure for its own energy whenever you try to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics, as you already know."
Gail knew no such thing, but didn't really care. The alien ship was here. The shuttle was here. The dead "leafy" body, which under the floodlights she could just make out at this distance, was here. How they all arrived didn't matter. They were here.
Once again, the weirdness of the situation overtook her. Sitting on an alien planet, waiting to possibly be wiped out by beings to whom this planet was also alien ... Lahiri, this is not what we'd planned.
George and Ingrid were asking questions about tidal forces and matter-antimatter reactions. Gail heard a faint rumble, little more than a suggestion of noise. She might not have noticed it at all if she hadn't been listening for it. But, no, it was merely thunder, very distant. It was far too soon for the other.
Figure an average of fifty miles per hour in the rover, pushed at top speed, assuming fairly even terrain. All right, forty miles per hour. Four hundred miles. No stops. Lucy and Nan wouldn't be here until just before dawn.
"...and can accelerate and decelerate at a maximum of a hundred gees," Karim finished. "That's what we clocked it at coming in. If I'm right, that ship could reach 99.9 percent of c fast enough to cover interstellar distances in what we would consider a few days. Shipboard time, of course."
Because they would come, Lucy and Nan. Jake had ordered them not to. But, as Jake himself had pointed out, he was not a head of state nor a commander-in-chief. He was an ex-lawyer turned space entrepreneur turned colonist, and nothing about this colony was going as planned.
In the middle of the night, Gail woke abruptly. Instantly her heart started to jackhammer. She'd heard someone outside the tent. Mueller and his weapons...
Mueller lay asleep beside her, with the heavy oblivious sleep of youth. Now Gail remembered the plan to have one of them always awake, watching the shuttle. There was a rotation schedule. But two places were empty: Ingrid and George.
She already knew what they were doing, but she crept out of the inflatable anyway, gingerly crawling over Jake. Outside, the floodlights still shone on full. Ingrid and George had set up their equipment, which must have come on the big skimmer, beside the cookstove. Ingrid looked up, guilty and so immediately on the offensive.
"For God's sake, Gail, don't come creeping up scaring people like that! Go back to bed, you have a broken arm, Shipley said to take care of yourself. The last thing we need is the burden of an invalid."
Gail ignored this attempted diversion. "Jake told you not to do that. Both of you."
George said pleadingly, "It's only a piece of ... appendage that was scattered away from the body. We didn't touch the body itself. It's still there, just like Jake said. We only ran analysis on this small piece. And—"
"He told you no, George. We don't know what death rituals these aliens may or may not have!"
"Gail, will you listen a minute? We ran analysis. It's not DNA-based life."
It took a moment for George's words to take on meaning. "Then you have a piece of something that isn't life! Synthetic clothing or something—"
"No. It's cellular, even though none of the subcellular structures look even remotely familiar. And we can't be completely positive that the part we've identified as the nucleus-analogue is that. But we think so, and Gail ... it's not based on DNA."
She said stupidly, "All life in the galaxy is based on DNA. Everywhere."
"Everywhere we've been so far," Ingrid corrected. "But not this. This is really alien life!"
As if the Furs weren't. All at once Gail's head hurt. "So where are these viney-things from?"
"How should we know?" George said. He looked as if he not only hadn't slept, but might never sleep again. Exultant, with a faint underlay of hysteria.
Ingrid said, " 'Vines.' That's a good name for them."
Gail glanced at the shuttle. "Has it done anything?"
"No," George said. "Gail, the cell walls—"
"I don't care," Gail said, and stalked back to the inflatable, leaving the two scientists staring after her as if it were she who was the actual alien.
By the time Nan and Lucy arrived, everyone was calling the aliens "Vines."
The rover pulled up at dawn, Nan at the wheel and Lucy asleep until the vehicle stopped. From the look of her, Nan was evidently on the same sort of accels as Ingrid and George. Nan's hair stuck out in ratty patches, her skin was still rubbed raw and bruised, and one front tooth was missing. She grinned, higher than clouds, at Gail. Their eyes met.
Gail was astonished at the feeling that rushed over her. She stood still in the middle of the quadrangle and let herself feel it.
Oh, my God, no. Not her.
Friend William Shipley's daughter.
Ex-con.
Willful, self-centered bitch. No matter how much she was "changing" as she "found her calling."
Blackmailer of Rudy Sche
rer.
Not her.
Nan seemed to know, or guess, what was happening. She stared steadily at Gail, assessing. Lucy woke up, looked around dazedly, and shook her head. Nan went on staring, and then she smiled at Gail, a smile so humble and beseeching, so unlike Nan Frayne, that Gail felt her legs carry her toward the rover.
"Hello, Nan. Lucy."
"Hello, Gail," Nan said softly, and that was all it took.
16
He had slept fitfully, dreaming vague, monstrous shapes without names. People came and went in the night; standing guard, he supposed. It wasn't until almost morning that he fell into anything like restful sleep, and when he awoke, Naomi had arrived on a Mira Corp rover with Lucy Lasky.
"Good morning, Dr. Shipley," Ingrid Johnson said. She seemed buoyant and uncharacteristically pleasant. "Nothing happened with the shuttle during the night. It's still just sitting there."
Jake, who did not look buoyant, said, "We've hauled water in the big skimmer for rudimentary washing. It's in the tank."
"Naomi is here, isn't she?" Shipley said. Lucy stood with her back to Jake, eating something George had apparently heated on the stove. George looked calm; he had apparently come to terms with shooting Erik Halberg. Or perhaps he was one of those people who never had to come to terms with their own actions.
Jake said shortly, "Yes. Nan and Lucy have arrived," and strode off to the skimmer.
Shipley said to Ingrid, "Where is Naomi? Do you know?"
"She might be asleep. They brought another inflatable—it's set up over there."
Shipley hadn't even noticed the second, smaller inflatable, set up to the right of the bunker. He didn't approach it. George was handing out steaming cups of coffee, and Shipley took one.
Surprised, George said, "That's the first time I've ever seen you take caffeine, Doctor."
Shipley didn't answer. It seemed too much effort to explain that no, ordinarily he didn't want the artificial animation, the distraction from his own inner silence, that even a minor stimulant like coffee provided. But this was not "ordinarily." He was already cut off from silence by emotional agitation, as unwelcome as physical spasms. Too much was happening. At least the coffee was hot.
He drank half of it and knew it was a mistake. The exhortation to simplicity was there for a reason. His heart thumped and skipped.
He was discreetly pouring the rest of the coffee onto the ground when Naomi, not asleep after all, came around the bulk of the larger skimmer with Gail, both of them lugging sacks.
"Morning, Dada," Naomi called. "Getting to look like a fucking used-vehicle lot around here, isn't it?" She gestured with her free hand at the two skimmers and the rover, and laughed.
She was on something a lot stronger than caffeine.
"Naomi—"
"I know, I look terrible," she said cheerfully, "but I'm actually all right. And my appearance isn't exactly critical at this point in human history, is it?" She half turned and winked at Gail, who frowned. Naomi did look terrible, Shipley thought, but she also looked something he'd never seen in her before: purposeful.
Jake appeared. "What's that, Gail?"
Gail set down her sack. To Shipley, she looked ready for battle. "Some equipment Nan and Lucy brought with them."
"What sort of equipment?" His tone was too level.
Gail took a step forward and looked straight into his eyes. "Let's have this out, Jake. I know you told them not to come, and they did, and you're riled as hell. But they're here now and they have some good ideas about the shuttle. You owe it to the situation to at least listen."
"I owe it to the expedition to send them back to Mira City. Which is what I'm doing."
"Like the autocratic goon you are," Naomi said.
"Nan—" Gail said.
"Shut up, Gail, I know she's your girlfriend now but that doesn't mean—"
"Why, Jake," Naomi taunted, "what happened to your famous diplomacy and tact?"
"You worthless bitch—"
"Jake, don't you dare call Nan—"
"Stop!" Shipley roared, and the three of them, along with the rest of the camp, fell silent.
Weariness washed over Shipley. Girlfriend. They all looked at him in astonishment: William Shipley, physician, New Quaker, who never raised his voice or gave orders. Laughable plastic icon. Believer in primitive mumbo jumbo. Lord, he was tired. The coffee had only made it worse.
He said, "I want us to join in a Meeting for Silence. All of us. Now."
He didn't even say please.
Something about Shipley's outburst seemed to have restored Jake's smoothness. "I think that's a good idea, Doctor. We could all use a moment of silence to pull ourselves together. Come on, let's sit down. George? Karim?"
Jake had named the two most amiable and least angry people in camp. They sank easily to the groundcover. Karim smiled up at Shipley, and with a soft grunt Shipley lowered himself to the trampled purple ground.
After a moment Ingrid sat, too, followed by Franz Mueller. Lucy moved unobtrusively to sit near Jake, a small cross-legged figure. She bent her head.
That left Naomi and Gail. Shipley tried to clear his mind, to ask nothing, to be demanding of nothing. Let the good come, whatever it might be. His task was, simply, to wait.
Gail and Naomi sat on the ground, holding hands.
No one spoke. A few people shifted restlessly: Gail, Franz. But into the silence came the sound of animal song, the shrill and oddly sweet flutings of what George had called a reptile-analogue. A small breeze, cool and fragrant, ruffled the groundcover. It still bore a faint tang of night-blooming flowers.
No testimony came to Shipley, nothing that moved him to speak aloud. But slowly the silence cleared him. He felt it sinking into him, that silence, palpable and warm as sunlight. His stomach un-knotted. Peace crept into him, precious spiritual sustenance, in shared silence with this most unlikely congregation.
Shipley wasn't sure how much time passed. Probably longer than anyone thought. Time could lose its meaning, in profound silence. When someone finally spoke, it was George Fox. In a low, quiet voice the biologist said, "The shuttle door is opening."
They came out one by one by one, each on a small rolling cart. Again the incline of the shuttle ramp seemed too steep for the carts, which plunged down, teetered, then righted themselves. The three carts then stood in a still row.
They were plants, Shipley thought—and were not. His eyesight was in better shape than the rest of his aging body. Through the clear dome over each cart he could see clearly the central trunk, a reddish-brown cylinder maybe a foot in diameter, a yard high. It looked tough, like hide or wood. Off it sprouted many appendages—tentacles? branches?—that in turn sprouted flat, fleshy-looking, irregular ovals of tissue, maybe a hundred of them. Leaves. Or fingerless hands. A few of the leaves/hands on the ends of the longest tentacles/branches did seem to have fingers. Or maybe they were just deeply serrated leaves. Or maybe they were other, more flexible plant-things, like vines. Nothing on the aliens made for easy analogues with Earth life. Or with life on Greentrees, for that matter. These creatures lacked discernible heads, eyes, legs. Some of the branches/tentacles/vines lay coiled loosely on the floors of the carts.
None of the humans moved until Shipley, as slowly as he could, turned his head slightly to look at Franz Mueller. The soldier had a gun beside him on the ground, but he made no move to touch it.
Jake, too, was checking on Franz. When he was satisfied, he began to rise, as slowly as Shipley had turned his head. "Nobody else get up," he said quietly. "Let's not panic them again."
Naomi shifted, and Shipley was afraid she was going to flout his orders, make a scene, wreck the moment. But all she did was push her sack toward Jake.
"The Chinese-English translator," she said softly to Jake. "A long shot, but who knows?"
"Not yet," he said, and moved carefully forward.
As he started toward them, the aliens began to wave their leaves/ hands/protuberances. Jake stopped.
/>
Slowly one cart rolled forward.
Jake moved again, matching its pace. Shipley suddenly thought, irrelevantly, that one of Jake's negotiating tactics had always been to match his opponent's body language. That would be very difficult here.
At a glacial pace, alien and human moved forward. Eventually they met, halfway between shuttle and camp. Then they simply stood, Jake looking at the alien, the alien perhaps looking back. Or not.
Another cart began to inch forward.
Gail said, "George. You go. You're the biologist."
George Fox needed no urging. He got up so eagerly that Gail hissed, "Slowly!" George made himself move more slowly.
It took ten minutes for George and the second alien to meet. The third cart began to move.
Ingrid Johnson started to rise. Gail said, "No."
Ingrid began angrily, "But I'm—"
"The wrong person for this," Gail said, keeping her voice low. Nonetheless, did one of the aliens turn its trunk slightly toward her? "Dr. Shipley. Go."
Surprised, he rose. Yes, it felt right. This was what he was supposed to do.
Up close, the alien looked even stranger. Its body was not made of flesh, or wood, or chitin, but of some substance different from all of them. Shipley was twice as tall as the creature would have been without its low cart. He gazed down at the top of the alien, a slightly waving mass of branches and tentacles and protuberances that, he could now see, were perforated with hundreds of tiny holes. The nonprotuberance body parts, trunk and "vines," were covered with what looked like brownish slime.
Shipley heard himself say, "Jake, let's sit down. As we were when they came out."
Jake and George sat. In silence, Shipley thought. It was the motionless silence that had led the aliens to open their doors. The quietude and peace. Humans were so seldom quiet. So seldom still.
"Just sit," he said softly, and marveled at himself for usurping Jake's authority. Jake didn't seem to mind. George looked as if he could sit there, gazing hungrily at the aliens, forever.