"Not if they've been using all their resources fighting wars," George said.
Everyone fell silent. Finally Faisal's voice said over the link, "Jake? Should I answer?"
"No," Jake said, "not yet. Let's wait until we see what develops here with the Vines."
"As you say," Faisal said neutrally.
Jake felt Lucy's small hand steal into his. The thin fingers were warm, but he knew his libidinous mood was not returning this night. He was suddenly exhausted, and all he wanted was sleep.
By dawn the dead alien's corpse had disappeared. The underlying groundcover didn't appear affected except for the parts blocked from sunlight by the shattered cart, but George and Ingrid immediately began taking samples.
"Either go back to camp with those or sit still here," Jake said. "The—"
"Here they come," Nan said.
The shuttle door opened and the three carts tumbled down. Jake, George, Ingrid, and Nan sat in the same positions as yesterday, Nan turning on the Chinese-English translator. "I had a thought in the night," she said. "This thing picks up the vibration range of the human voice, but that's all. What if the Vines are trying to talk to us in that range only dogs can hear, what's it called—"
"Ultrasonic," Ingrid said.
"Then if they are, or some other range, we wouldn't even know if a—"
"Hello," a Vine said.
Jake's head jerked back so fast his neck snapped. For a moment he couldn't see. His chest pounded. When his vision cleared, he saw that the others were looking at him.
"H-hello," he said.
"Hello, Jake Holman." The voice was level, uninflected. Mechanical.
"They've got a translator," Ingrid said, "working off everything we said yesterday. My God, it must be biological, maybe membranes vibrated by chemical signal..."
"The human eardrum is biological," George said. "Hello!"
"Hello, George Fox."
Jake repeated what yesterday had been canned prattle and today was amazing truth. "Hello. We are humans. We're glad you're here."
Instantly the sweet mild intoxicant filled him. That was their preferred way of communicating; the translator was just for the benefit of the humans. The scent was distracting. And this was, after all, a negotiation ... His old skills rushed in, reassuring him.
"Please do not send us scents. We want more to talk." Always start strong, establishing dominance.
"Yes," a Vine said, and the intoxicant lessened, dissipating on the slight breeze until it disappeared.
"Thank you," Jake said. Should he apologize for the death of the Vine? Not yet. Stay in a strong position. But not too strong. Most humans, Jake knew, were not open to new information because they were made too uncomfortable by feeling ignorant; better to just close your mind entirely. Were the Vines the same way? Best to proceed on that assumption until he knew different. Don't seem overbearing.
The Vine said, "We are surprised to find you on this planet."
Me, too, Jake thought. He said, "We came..." How long ago in Greentrees rotations? The "month" was a meaningless concept when you had three moons. "...half a year ago." Close enough.
"You come from world what?"
"It's called 'Earth.' " That gave away nothing.
"Where?"
"Far away," Jake said.
"We come from world a hundred light-years away."
They're being very open, thought Jake, followed instantly by, they're lying. Too far. Even at c they would have needed a hundred years to get here, not even including acceleration or deceleration, although Karim had said they could do that frighteningly fast. But Karim had also said their orbital ship was small, how could it sustain even cold-sleep life for that long? Although—
The Vine's next words knocked the hazy calculations out of Jake's head. "Other aliens here not you come from very closer."
"Other ... other aliens?"
"Look like you. Same genes."
The Furs. All you bipedal warm-blooded DNA types look alike.
It knew the word "genes." Had someone used that word here yesterday, or had the Vines been listening to the camp from a hundred yards away?
What did they know about us?
He said, "Same genes, yes. Where do they come from?"
The slot in the bottom of the cart opened. The bioarm slithered out. Instinctively Jake recoiled, then made himself sit still. The arm spread itself into a flat, irregularly shaped blob. It began to change color.
"It's drawing," Nan whispered.
Most of the blob turned dark. Scattered across it were light dots. Jake said, "I don't—"
"It's the sky," Nan said. "The same one you've been looking at every night, dummy, the constellations as seen from Greentrees!"
Jake didn't notice constellations. One "star" started to glow redly. The Vine said, "The enemy's star system."
Enemy?
"They kill us," the Vine said. "Like you kill one of us, but they do not stop like you stop. They kill us on our planets. We cannot talk with them like we talk with you. They do not sit with us in the sun. They only kill."
"Your people are at war with the other aliens. The ones with our genes."
"Yes. Long war. Eight thousand Greentrees years."
Jake's mind reeled. He willed it steady and sorted through this information overload. Ingrid said, "Time dilation..."
"Yes," the Vine agreed in its mechanical voice. "They kill us and kill us."
Jake risked, "And you kill them."
"No."
"You do not kill them."
"No. You are sorry you kill one of us."
Jake said, "Very very sorry."
"Yes. We see. You sit with us in the sun."
The bioarm turned monochromatic and slithered back into the cart slot. Jake said firmly, "We are not your enemies."
"Yes, you are not," the Vine agreed.
"We are not the other aliens' enemies."
"Yes, you are not."
At least that much was established. Maybe Mira City could remain neutral, a noncombatant in whatever was going on between these two powerful species ... except that the Furs on Greentrees had looked anything but powerful.
A war that had gone on for eight thousand years.
Nan said, "The other aliens ... we call them 'Furs.' "
"Furs," the Vine repeated. Impossible to know if it understood the word's root meaning.
Nan continued, "The Furs on this planet, on Greentrees, they are your enemies?"
"No," the Vine said. "Yes."
The humans looked at each other.
The Vine said, "The Furs who live on another star system they kill us. The Furs on Greentrees do not kill us."
"Oh," Nan said. "Why not?"
"They have not weapons to hurt us," the Vine said logically.
Jake said, "Why did the other Furs leave these Furs here on Greentrees, without weapons?"
Now it was the Vines who were silent. Minutes passed. Were they communicating? Each Vine was sealed in a separate dome. They could be signaling by minutely waving fronds or whatever their appendages were ... but could they actually see? Nothing on them resembled eyes.
Finally the same Vine, clearly their spokesperson, said, "The other Furs not leave these Furs without weapons on Greentrees. The other Furs not bring these Furs to Greentrees. These Furs are experiment in your genes. To win the war.
"We made the Furs on Greentrees."
It went on all day. At noon Jake couldn't listen anymore. Something in him reached saturation. George and Ingrid were asking biology questions, and the Vine was answering them partly in words, partly in bioarm drawings. The "talking" Vine seemed to have endless patience, just as the two silent Vines seemed to have an endless capacity to sit, silent, moving only when necessary to stay in the sun.
Jake rose, every muscle stiff from sitting so long on the ground-cover. He badly needed to pee. He said courteously, "I must go now. George and Ingrid and Nan will stay to talk, if you agree."
The Vine said, "We
agree. A little more talk. But then we sit together."
Oh, God, Jake was making a breach of protocol by skipping the sitting-together part. He was about to say he would rejoin them soon when the Vine said, "You must go, Jake. You are a mobile."
A what?
"You are all mobiles, are you all mobiles? We think yes. Mobiles must run and walk and go. On our world our mobiles do not talk. They do not sit together with us. We love them as mobiles. You humans"—George had taught them the word—"are partly mobiles, partly Vines."
"Yes," Jake said, because it was instinct with him to agree with strong statements and then work to modify his agreement later, according to negotiating necessity. But what had he agreed to? That humans were "partly mobile and partly Vine."
"We love them as mobiles."
George said eagerly, "Tell us about the mobiles on your world."
"No, it is not mobile time," the Vine said obscurely.
"Then tell us—" Jake left.
Gail and Lucy had not set out for Mira City, after all. Jake could hardly blame them. Talking Vines were a lot more compelling than mute Vines. "You heard?"
"The sensors are all still in place out there," Gail said. "My God, Jake, what does it mean? A war? They 'made' the Furs on Greentrees?"
"I know as much as you do," Jake said wearily. "We need to hear how George and Ingrid put it together. And you, Lucy. Societies we can't examine directly are your bailiwick, too."
It was a peace offering, and Jake saw that she accepted it as such. He was suddenly very glad she hadn't gone back to Mira City. Last evening's rage had evaporated in the unanticipated bout of love-making in the middle of the night, when Jake had slept off his first exhaustion. People, he knew, did sometimes fall into sex when danger was running high. But he had never done so before. His own behavior bewildered him. Lucy smiled at him, and the smile warmed his confused mind.
She said, "I have some ideas, unless of course they get modified by whatever gets said this afternoon. The Fur societies may be at different technological levels for some good reason. I'm going to bring the plant-sitters something to eat."
"After that could I talk to you a few—"
"Mr. Holman!" It was Karim, looking determined. "May I please get aboard that Vine shuttle? Will you ask permission of the Vines?"
Jake gazed at the young physicist. Everybody had a different slant here. Karim looked not the slightest bit interested in the Vine biology that so captivated George and Ingrid, nor in the alleged creation of Furs that fascinated Lucy and Nan, nor even in being caught in the crossfire of some sort of interstellar war. Karim was after the alien physics, and he had the single-minded look of a bloodhound on the scent. All that was missing was the baying.
"I don't know, Karim. They haven't offered to let us inspect the shuttle close up."
"We haven't asked."
"True. But it would be a mistake to push them."
Karim said, "They seem ready to answer any questions we ask, and they're giving us far more information about them than we're giving them about us. Do you have any reason to think they might refuse to let me go inside the shuttle?"
He would have made a good lawyer. "Let me think about it,"
Jake said. Karim moved off, looking unhappy. "Lucy, where are Mueller and Dr. Shipley?"
Her thin, pretty face grew somber. "They're taking a walk. Franz is having a very hard time with what Scherer did and Halberg did and he himself did. Dr. Shipley tested Franz's cerebrospinal fluid again, and then he said he and Franz were going to take a walk."
Gail said bitterly, "Let's just hope Mueller doesn't shoot Shipley."
Jake understood the bitterness; she was having a hard time herself with what had happened. She and Jake had hired the Swiss security team. He felt guilty, too. He said, "How did they all elude the background checks? Did you ask Nan Frayne?"
Gail accepted the connection that his question implied. Lucy moved tactfully away, out of earshot. "Dr. Shipley was right. Scherer had arranged for all the ... the rebuilt work to be done after we'd finished our checks and before we launched from Earth. Of course, they'd started the clones years earlier. Mueller and Josef Gluck, the youngest, were barely out of their teens. Scherer had served under their fathers. It was a multigenerational pact."
Jake asked, "Funded how?"
"Nan didn't know. Wherever the money came from, Scherer was very careful covering it up. In fact, I was surprised to learn that hidden fortunes were possible in this comlinked age."
Oh, they were possible, Jake thought, and carefully kept his face from giving anything away. "How did Nan learn about it?"
Gail looked briefly away. "In prison. A chance encounter. She has a varied history, that one."
"Gail ... are you sure you know what you're doing, choosing Nan?"
"Of course I don't know what I'm doing," Gail snapped. "What makes you think any of us know what we're doing? We're awash in aliens while simply trying to survive on an alien planet. Which reminds me, Thekla has a problem with the genemod wheat. She wants to talk to you."
Jake found he was glad to comlink Thekla, back at the Mira City farms. It made things seem almost normal.
Almost.
18
Shipley came back from his walk with Franz Mueller more troubled than when he'd left. The soldier had insisted on carrying a weapon and on staying within sight of the group by the shuttle at all times. As a result, the walk had comprised a large semicircle, with Franz paying more attention to the aliens than to the conversation.
The only time Shipley felt he'd had Franz's attention was when he said quietly, "You didn't want to have the cloned organs put in, did you?"
"Yes, I did want!" Franz almost shouted. A moment later he turned stony. "Captain Scherer make the clone for me, when I am still nineteen, twenty years old. My father and Captain Scherer. My father commands the unit Captain Scherer serves. Captain Scherer saves my father's life, in the fighting at Rio de Janeiro ... you remember the fighting at Rio?"
"I've read about it," Shipley said. Food riots, about as brutal as urban uprisings could get. It made painful reading; what had it been like to live it?
Mueller continued, "They swear the Blutpakt. All of them alive after the fighting swear the Blutpakt."
Shipley nodded. These were—had been—increasingly common on the Earth the Ariel had left behind. The word might be German or Italian or Bantu or Chinese, and the details differed, but the intent was the same. In a fragmented and lonely century, with globalization bringing neither strong kinship ties nor strong religion, a blood pact meant completely reliable loyalty. The members could count on each other for help, protection, companionship, continuity, no matter what else happened in their life. They lived near each other, took care of each other. They were what a community should be, had perhaps once been.
Was a New Quaker meeting only a milder version of a Blutpakt, cemented by different means?
No. A meeting did not create, nurture, and murder innocent cloned human beings for a chance at extended life.
"Franz, you could have had a Blutpakt without becoming rebuilts."
He didn't answer, staring fixedly at the shuttle.
Shipley said, "You feel terrible about shooting Captain Scherer. Don't you also feel terrible about killing your clone?"
"No. The clone is not a human, it is the clone. Doctor, Entschuldigen Sie, but you are not a priest. I am Catholic when I am a boy, but I am not Catholic now. And you are not a priest."
True enough. Shipley had started this walk to see if he could make Franz feel better, ease some of his guilt. Somewhere Shipley had gone off track. But the image in his mind, of a teenage Franz Mueller drooling and smiling, then strapped down and butchered for his heart, his liver ... Shipley shuddered. The image didn't seem to horrify Franz the way it did him.
"Franz, I must, as a doctor, ask you some questions."
"Ask."
Shipley ran through an artful list, designed to elicit not only information on Franz'
s physical state but his emotional one as well. When he was finished, Shipley knew no more than when he began. Franz was not sleeping well, but then, who was? He was jumpy, given to mood swings, uncertain about the future, wary of the Vines. But he did not seem depressed, delusional, paranoid, manic, or schizophrenic. He was merely the callous and confused product of a callous and confused age, thrust into a situation that would confuse a Buddha. Or a George Fox, original version.
George Fox, current version, seemed the least confused person in camp. He hurried in at midafternoon, carrying a clanking nest of empty canteens like robot dogs on strings. "Karim! Where's Karim, Doctor?"
"Latrine, I believe."
"The Vines said he can go aboard their shuttle!"
Beside Shipley, Franz Mueller tensed. "I go, also."
Jake said, "No."
At first Shipley thought that Jake was forbidding Karim access to the shuttle. However, Jake addressed only Franz. "No weapons aboard the Vine shuttle, or anywhere near them in person. They're friendly to us, and we want to keep it that way."
Franz said, "With respect, Mr. Holman—they seem friendly."
"Appearances are enough for now. No weapons."
"I can go if I leave weapons here?"
Shipley saw Jake hesitate before he turned. "Doctor?"
"Franz does not seem mentally unbalanced in any way." But he was augmented, surely, in ways Shipley couldn't imagine, and was capable of doing a great deal of damage even without visible weapons. Say no, Jake.
"Yes, if you leave all weapons here. And if you stay just outside the shuttle, watching Dr. Mahjoub as he goes in."
"Ja," Franz said solemnly.
Shipley watched the two of them set off toward the shuttle. A path was becoming beaten into the purple groundcover. Behind him Lucy Lasky said suddenly, "Everything has a suspended feel, doesn't it? Like we're all hanging over a ... a huge chessboard and we don't know what moves will come next."
More like hanging over an abyss. Shipley didn't say this aloud. He watched the growing group around the Vines, Karim and Franz added to George and Ingrid and Naomi. He wished he could find a moment of inner silence: quiet, peaceful.
Unsuspended.
The Vines again went inside their shuttle at dusk, and Karim dropped his bomb. "It's not theirs."