The World Before

  It was time to eat. Her stomach was gnawing its way out again, objecting to a meager diet of ten-day lettuce and beans when it wanted plenty of fat and sugar.

  “Boss?” said a woman’s voice behind her.

  “Sue?”

  Webster stood with one hand on her belt and an apologetic smile on her face. Lindsay thought she looked like the sort of girl who teachers described as “helpful.” But she had her ESF670 rifle slung on her webbing and she hadn’t earned a green beret for being helpful.

  “It’s time,” she said. “You knew this was coming, didn’t you?”

  “I did.” But she was still suddenly scared. And she wanted to run. “Oh God.”

  “Let’s walk out of here with a bit of dignity, shall we?”

  “And Rayat?”

  “Leave him to Mart.”

  “He’s not going to slime his way out of this, is he?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Lindsay walked out and Webster followed behind. If the marine could take this with equanimity, then so could she. She wondered how the wess’har might settle the score and knew that whatever they did, it would be fast and efficient, which suddenly turned out to be little comfort.

  She really didn’t want to die.

  Webster kept right behind her as she climbed the access ladder to ground level and walked through the dome to the entrance. She looked around to see who had come for them. Ussissi or isenj? Nobody going about their business in the dome was behaving as if anyone unexpected had entered.

  “Where are they?” asked Lindsay.

  And then she saw Rayat. There was something wrong—more wrong than being taken away by alien troops for some unspecified death. Barencoin and Becken were frog-marching Rayat towards the door. Small knots of crew and contractors stood aside to let the men pass, staring and doing double takes.

  Rayat’s shocked white face said pain. As he came within a few meters of Lindsay, she could see he wasn’t just being forced to the door: from the angle of his arms, his wrists were cuffed behind his back.

  “Ready?” said Barencoin. “We haven’t got much of a window. She didn’t put up a fight, then?”

  “I just asked nicely,” said Webster.

  Lindsay turned just as she realized that Webster wasn’t accompanying her. She was arresting her. Nice, capable, helpful Webster held her rifle in both hands now.

  “Come on, Boss,” she said. “I’ve got to hand you over in one piece. Don’t do anything daft.”

  “And what about you? What do you think they’re going to do to you? You think being at the bottom of the command pile will stop the wess’har coming for you too?”

  “Yeah,” said Barencoin. “So far, it has.”

  Rayat stumbled. Barencoin had hold of his collar. Lindsay was right behind them, Webster’s rifle in her back. All she could think of right then was that she was hungry and that she hadn’t had time to go to the toilet. When it came to it, she was as reluctant to face death as she had been on Bezer’ej, when she was so convinced that she was prepared to blow her grenades and take Shan Frankland with her.

  You don’t have the guts.

  She would never erase Shan’s rebuke. The woman’s contempt for anyone with less reckless courage than herself was an ever-present toxin weakening Lindsay at every turn. Shan Frankland certainly knew how to haunt you.

  “I think I’ll hand you over to Ade,” Barencoin told Rayat. “He could do with a laugh.”

  “Discipline doesn’t take long to fall apart, does it?” said Rayat. “I’m an officer of your government. I was acting legally.”

  “Technically, so were we, but we still got ours and now you’re going to get yours.”

  “Think of it as peacekeeping,” said Becken. He slipped on his breather mask as they stepped through the airlock. An isenj ground transport swept up to the entrance and Lindsay found herself pushed flat onto its floor, Rayat landing with a thud beside her.

  “It’s worth it if I see you go first, you bastard,” she said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Shut it,” said Barencoin, and put his boot flat on Rayat’s cheek. “And keep your bloody heads down.”

  “Why?” Lindsay just thought riot. The isenj blamed them. They’d riot if they saw them. There was a ussissi driving and it didn’t turn to look at them.

  “I said shut it.”

  She inhaled a scent of damp forest. She knew that smell, too: there was an isenj in the vehicle.

  “I regret the drama,” said Minister Ual’s voice. “But this is more to protect me from my own people’s reaction than to prevent your escape.”

  “Where are you taking us?” asked Rayat.

  “F’nar.”

  “You don’t have jurisdiction over us.”

  “I’m simply carrying out your government’s wishes.” Ual suddenly leaned over them like a collapsing Christmas tree, glittering with royal blue beads. “My problem is simply that I am not carrying out the wishes of my own.”

  Nevyan found it hard to keep the news of Shan’s survival to herself. Secrecy was a very unwess’har thing. Her husbands had known why she had left in a hurry, and now they wanted to know what had been done with the remains. Humans had strange rituals. There was a certain curiosity about a species that preferred to hide its dead. But they were gethes, carrion-eaters: so they did such things.

  Secrecy was unimportant now that Shan was safe on Wess’ej. The news reached most of F’nar before midday.

  Giyadas insisted on seeing the human who had come back from the dead. The isanket led her stepmother by the hand along the terraces, tugging with uncharacteristic impatience. Nevyan remembered to knock on the door. Human territorial privacy was a difficult concept to grasp.

  “Is she recovering?” she asked.

  “We think so.” Aras was mixing something in a bowl that smelled full of evem. “Her temperature is very high, which is a good sign that c’naatat is modifying her. She’s still not conscious.”

  “May we see her?”

  “She owes her life to your persistence. She would be glad to know you were here.”

  Ade was sitting beside the bed with a piece of what the gethes called smartpaper, a data storage medium that was a thin white sheet of fabric. He was reading aloud from it but he stopped when he realized Nevyan was standing in the doorway.

  “Just in case she can hear,” said Ade, clearly embarrassed. “Barrack Room Ballads.”

  Shan didn’t look peaceful. She looked agonized and ill, and there was a transparent tube taped to her cheek and extending into her nose. But she didn’t look as horrific as when Nevyan had first seen her. The bones in her face seemed less prominent and her skin was flushed pink.

  Giyadas stared at the tube, hands tightly clasped. “What’s that for?”

  “For putting food directly into her stomach,” said Ade. “She can’t swallow properly.”

  “She must have been very frightened. Will her hair grow again?”

  He ran a fingertip over Shan’s scalp. “It’s already growing. I can feel it.”

  It was hard to think of her as she had once been. Even though Shan was shorter than most matriarchs, Eddie had referred to her as a strapping girl, a tall and athletic female by human standards. It was also hard to imagine that she had survived in the vacuum of space and returned with any scrap of life in her at all.

  Eddie wandered in and joined the solemn contemplation. He leaned closer and looked into her face. “Come on, you old bag,” he said. “I bet you can hear me. Come on. Get up and take a swing at me. Stop slacking.”

  “Why do you say things you don’t mean?” asked Giyadas.

  “Because it’s easier than getting upset because she looks so awful.”

  Ade exuded a strong scent of agitation. He fidgeted with the smartpaper, clearly annoyed at the interruption. “I don’t think she’d enjoy being a spectator sport.”

  “That’s my cue,” said Eddie, and walked out.

  C’naatat had turned o
ut to be even more extraordinary than Nevyan had imagined. She understood why it provoked such extreme reactions in humans; they were solitary creatures, competitive rather than cooperative, and c’naatat had all the makings of a very desirable military advantage. What it meant to individuals also set on avoiding the natural progression of life she could only imagine. Their ability to close their eyes to what would happen to the world outside their heads constantly amazed her.

  And yet there were humans like Shan and—she dared think it—Lindsay Neville who went to extreme lengths to stop it becoming available to their own kind.

  “Where are her lights?” asked Giyadas.

  Nevyan looked carefully at Shan’s hands for signs of the bioluminescence she had once displayed, a legacy of the bezeri. Shan hadn’t been sure quite how c’naatat had managed to collect that genetic material, and it had distressed her at first. Giyadas had found it fascinating.

  Ade took one of Shan’s hands and turned it over carefully. He could touch her with impunity; he was already contaminated. “Nothing yet,” he said. “They might come back when she’s better.”

  “There are others who wish to visit,” said Nevyan carefully. “My mother.”

  “I’m sure Shan would love to see Mestin. When she’s awake.”

  “Very well. I understand.”

  “Please don’t think I’m being ungrateful, ma’am. You found her and we owe you everything. But Shan wouldn’t like too many people to see her in this state.”

  Humans were obsessed with appearance. Nevyan noted his use of the word we. “A considerate thought, Ade Bennett.”

  He gave her an awkward smile without any display of teeth and went on reading. Nevyan wondered how this odd narrative about soldiers in ancient Earth wars might be of comfort to Shan, but there was a great deal she didn’t know about her yet, nor about Ade Bennett. Eventually Aras came in with the bowl of liquid food and more tubing. Ade put down the smartpaper and stood up.

  “Let’s leave Aras to it, shall we?” He ushered Nevyan and Giyadas to the doorway.

  Nevyan knew she could do nothing further for Shan but she waited anyway, watching Giyadas interrogate Eddie on the nature of human secrecy. Ade, incongruously alien in his landscape-patterned battle clothing, polished his boots with rhythmic strokes. Eddie said he didn’t need to polish them at all, but he did it anyway. His weapon was propped by his seat.

  “So does everyone know she’s back?” asked Eddie.

  “I imagine so.” Nevyan waited for disapproval, knowing Eddie’s attitude to information, but none came. “Have you told the other soldiers?”

  Ade shrugged. “Haven’t seen them to tell them. I bet Izzy and Chaz have told the others about me, though. Haven’t had a message from them in days.”

  It didn’t matter who knew now. There was nothing the gethes could do to take c’naatat, and nobody else wanted it.

  “Does c’naatat think?” asked Ade.

  Nevyan considered the idea and wasn’t sure if it disturbed her. “I don’t know. It seems to make decisions, but I don’t know if it’s aware of its host’s feelings any more than we’re aware of this planet. It merely treats it kindly, as do we.”

  “See, we’d want to find that out.” Ade considered the degree of shine on his boots and seemed to find it wanting. The polishing gathered speed. “Back home, they’d want to take it apart and find out all about it.”

  “We don’t feel the need to.”

  Ade seemed satisfied with the answers for a while and sank back into the rhythm of polishing. “How did it keep her going? What was she like when you found her?”

  Nevyan cocked her head. “She was covered in a transparent substance. I assume it offered some protection while c’naatat kept her in suspension.”

  Eddie was checking something on his little fabric screen. He made uh-uh sounds as if understanding something he had not understood before. “Some organisms can go dormant and survive in space. Haloarcula can. So can Synechococcus. Look.” He offered Nevyan the screen. “They can form a coating. Neat.”

  “And valuable,” said Ade. “The top brass would be very interested in that. The more shit you throw at c’naatat, the tougher its host gets.”

  “Nietzsche,” said Eddie. “He said that which does not kill me—”

  “Yeah, I know who Nietzsche was, thanks.”

  “I wasn’t inferring that you didn’t.”

  Ade’s jaw muscles clenched and he went on polishing, eyes cast down. Giyadas was transfixed by the spectacle.

  “You’re a species that likes to keep busy,” she said. Eddie laughed, showing every sign of doting on the isanket. The tension subsided again.

  After a while Ade paused and cocked his head, then slipped his boots back on and reached for his rifle very casually, as if he was going to subject it to the same cleaning ritual as the rest of his equipment.

  Eddie paused. “What’s up, Ade?”

  Ade shook his head. But he stood to one side of the door, and as it opened he lunged forward and knocked the visitor off his feet. His rifle was hard against Shapakti’s head in one movement.

  “Fucking well knock,” said Ade, face flushed. “You can get your head blown off that way.” He eased his weapon away from Shapakti’s head and hauled him up by his clothing. “Like this.” Ade opened the door and rapped his fist against it. “Knock knock. Hello? Come in. Understand?”

  “Wow,” said Eddie. “Is that an Eqbas?”

  Aras appeared in the doorway of Shan’s room. “I’ll explain to him. Shapakti hasn’t learned enough English yet.”

  “I’ll teach him,” said Giyadas. “I can do it.”

  Shapakti warbled in the odd mix of eqbas’u and wess’u he seemed to be developing with Aras. Nevyan could follow it more easily now. “This gethes is dangerous. Why does he hate me?”

  “He thinks you’re ambushing him,” said Aras. “Humans have private spaces. And they don’t like being observed excreting or reproducing. This is why we have doors inside this house as well.”

  “Are the females aggressive? What about the female c’naatat? We had no idea the organism was so persistent. Can we—”

  “You will leave my isan alone.”

  “Esganikan is very curious about her condition.”

  “Esganikan can wait.”

  Nevyan intervened. But she shared Aras’s anxiety: the Eqbas had suddenly become intensely curious about c’naatat’s characteristics rather than its control. Shapakti smelled excited.

  “Shan Chail will tear you up for arse paper if you irritate her,” said Nevyan, hoping she’d recalled the phrase correctly. “Why have you come here?”

  Shapakti appeared to grasp the broad meaning. “To inform you that there is a vessel on a direct approach from Umeh.”

  “The ussissi fly shuttles between worlds all the time.”

  “This one carries an isenj minister with two gethes prisoners. He wishes to talk to Nevyan.”

  Nevyan looked at Eddie, whose gaze was darting between Aras and Shapakti as if trying to follow the conversation. “What’s up?” he asked. “Look, can I talk to this guy? Can someone interpret for me?”

  Nevyan ignored the request. Eddie could do as he wished; she didn’t understand why he always asked permission. “Ual seems to be delivering Neville and Rayat personally,” she said. “Your diplomatic mission was successful.”

  “I knew he’d keep his side of the bargain,” said Eddie, gaze still locked on Shapakti.

  “There is no bargain,” said Nevyan.

  The ussissi pilot made a conspicuous point of bringing his vessel to a halt a thousand kilometers outside wess’har space. He eased himself out of his seat and peered over the back of it at his passengers.

  “This is as far as I go without explicit landing clearance from F’nar.”

  Ual hadn’t enjoyed his first experience of space flight at all. Zero gravity was terrifying. Fragments of quills broken by his free-fall collisions crisscrossed the grille across the air vent, and he
wondered how ussissi tolerated so much time between planets. Ralassi was actually eating something, drifting a little against his restraints, utterly unconcerned.

  “Call F’nar again,” said Ual. “Invite them to board to carry out security checks.”

  The three human soldiers were actually dozing. Ual found that degree of serenity extraordinary, but they behaved as if this was as commonplace for them as it was for the ussissi. It probably was. Mohan Rayat was reading from a small square object. Considering his predicament, he didn’t appear appropriately distressed either.

  But Lindsay Neville was agitated. She fidgeted, rearranging her collar. She had hardly spoken throughout the journey and odd sounds were coming from her body, liquid gurgling sounds. Ual turned and looked at her, alarmed that she might be about to spawn young.

  “That’s my stomach,” she said. “I haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours. Do wess’har feed prisoners?”

  The ussissi didn’t look up from the console. “They don’t take prisoners at all.”

  “I regret the discomfort,” said Ual. “It makes little difference in the end, though.”

  “You’re a callous bastard, sir.”

  “You seem to forget that I might disapprove of your action on Bezer’ej for reasons other than the diplomatic embarrassment it causes us. Isenj don’t engage in wanton destruction.”

  Ralassi held out his hand, offering whatever snack he was devouring, but it seemed not to appeal to Lindsay despite her claim of great hunger. She looked away and there was no sound except the various hums and rattles of the hull and the ussissi pilot’s high-pitched conversation with F’nar.

  His chatter stopped. He seemed surprised.

  “This is not encouraging,” said the pilot.

  “Told you so,” said Lindsay. “This is where they shoot first and worry about hand-over negotiations later.”

  “F’nar isn’t replying to my message,” said the pilot. “This is the commander of an Eqbas vessel standing off our stern. She asks us to cut our drive and allow her vessel to take us inboard.”