Alien Earth (9 page)

The old man was acting as he spoke. Connie couldn’t see clearly what he was doing, but there was the click of little plastic boxes being stacked against one another. She leaned closer; he was packing box after box into a woven carry sack. He started to fold the cover flap, then paused a moment. Connie could feel him looking at her in the dark.

“Now, he’s going to find more here than he asked for,” the old man declared suddenly. As if the statement marked a decision he had just reached, he knelt stiffly down and
reached under the couch. He grunted, struggling with something, and then Connie heard a light thud as something dropped to the floor beneath the couch. The old man dragged out a heavy box, letting it scrape across the flooring. When he pried open the lid, Connie heard a sudden hiss and smelt the telltale sour of preservegas. Illegal for private citizens to have that. She swallowed.

The old man sat down on the floor by the box, his knees popping protestingly as he did so. He took out something wrapped tightly in white film and held it close to his eyes. He grunted in satisfaction and pushed it down deep in the carry sack, talking as he did so. “I know the kind of stuff he told me to watch for. Old literature in nonstandard languages, poetry, damn mystery novels. Well, he got what he paid for. But here’s a little bonus. Maybe the biggest mystery of all. Ever hear of Epsilon Station, kid?”

“Epsilon is a myth,” Connie replied automatically. Everyone had heard of Epsilon, at least everyone old enough to be allowed unsupervised time. Connie thought of her generation sibs clustered in little groups on their rest mats, sharing deliciously scary stories of Epsilon Station. Epsilon Station Humans had mutated, or mutinied, or just opened their own vents one day and spaced themselves away. Epsilon Station had created a plague that killed them all and nearly spread to the rest of the Human population, except that one courageous woman had vented the station to space. Epsiloners had stopped taking growth inhibitors and they grew too big for the station and it just burst open under the pressure. Epsiloners had had their own babies, from their own bodies, and made too, too many people, so they killed one another in the corridors and rioted over food and all lived together in the same dwellings, regardless of age.

Connie thought of the story of the shuttle that went way off course and landed on Epsilon and barely escaped from the plague-ridden survivors there. Later, the crew found a mutant tentacled hand, dead and gripping the air-lock wheel. Epsilon was still out there, looping in an exaggerated orbit, and Beastships that ventured too close had been fired upon. She’d heard that last one at the Merchant Marine Academy, from a student old enough to know better. But the story would still be repeated and passed on. Everyone had heard of Epsilon.

“Bullshit!” the old man hissed. Connie recognized it as an ancient oath. “Epsilon wasn’t a myth. It’s a lesson, and one we shouldn’t forget. The Conservancy vented Epsilon, six hundred years ago. Because Epsiloners dared to live as their ancestors had, dared to believe their right to a natural life was as important as a plant’s. So the Conservancy vented them, before their attitude could spread. It’s all here, right here. And I want Tug to have it. See, here, it’s called
A Brief History of the Abomination of Epsilon
. Conservancy made it, so they masked the truth with their philosophies and lies, but it’s all there, for anyone with one ear and half an eye. Then a few decades later, they got scared some of us might get smart to them, so they hushed it up. Destroyed all copies and references to Epsilon. You tell Tug to study this one. It’s a real mystery all right. If Epsilon was just a myth to scare little children, why’d they make this record? And then why did they destroy every single copy and everything that referred to this record? You answer me that, kid. Answer me that.”

He crawled over the floor to Connie, and she instinctively backed away. Questions, again. Why did they always ask her questions? The man was crazy. Not just unadjusted, but mentally unbalanced. Dangerous. She backed toward the door. But he only started gathering up the boxes Connie had spilled. “He can have all this shit, too. Can’t sell it. No one’s smart enough to buy it. Some of it’s pretty esoteric, and some of it’s weird, and some of it is just plain useless. So I can’t sell the damn things. Fools don’t know what they’re buying anymore, all they talk about is whether or not it’s a collector’s item. They only want the fancy stuff with the pretty pictures. But these are knowledge, damn it all, and it should be saved by someone, somewhere. Even if it’s some ’throp alien.”

The shock of hearing Tug referred to as ’throp, let alone an alien, kept her silent. Alien? She had grown up knowing that the only aliens on Castor and Pollux were Humans. Everything else had a perfect right to be there. She swallowed, but kept her silence. Besides, what was she going to say? Perhaps, “Are these recordings contraband? Are these illegally salvaged tapes that I’m going to be carrying back through Delta Station?” Sure. Some small sane part of her mind was advising her to get out now, to refuse to take them, so she
wouldn’t be involved, so they couldn’t take her for Adjustment again. But a sadder, wiser part of herself already knew the truth, had known it since her last Readjustment. She was marginal. Anything like this, any merest brush with illegality and they’d adjust her. Again and again, until they got it right, or until nothing was left of her. Funny, how sometimes thoughts like that, the ones that should have terrified her the most, calmed her down and made her feel some measure of control over her life.

The old man was still talking, but something in his voice had gone dead. “Just have him do the credit transfer, like before. And tell him good-bye for me. He’s been a good customer. Better than John. John quit coming when he found out Tug knew about me. John’s such a prick sometimes. Who cares, anyway? I’ll be long gone before Evangeline puts in here again. Every time I go in for my heart, they shake their heads more, and do less for me. ‘Is this quality of life really worth living?’ they ask me. ‘Do you feel you’re still an asset to society?’ Like I ever was. Hell.” The old man paused and cleared his throat with a disgusting wet cough.

“You tell that Tug that if I find someone who’s interested in the business, I’ll put him in place, and Tug will be able to reach him, same old way, same codes. But I don’t think I will. Every year there’s less and less to save. Of the old stuff, I mean. So much already gone, and some of the tapes I get now are irretrievable. Too far decayed when I get them. So you tell Tug he’s got as good a collection as anyone has of the old Earth stuff. He should be able to trade duplicates with other collectors, if he wants. But if he makes too many copies and trades them, his own collection will lose value. Not to mention that sooner or later he’ll get caught.”

The carry sack was bulging. The old man tottered upright, suddenly wheezing with the effort. He caught the back of the chair and sat down on the place he had just cleared. Connie stood silent, watching him. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light. She could see the bony structure of his face, holding up under the sagging flesh. He might have been handsome, a very long time ago. Now she could almost see his body biodegrading, could imagine the rot working through him, breaking down his muscles and bones…. She felt a wave of panic, wanted to leave. But his knotted old
hand still gripped the strap of the carry sack. “Now I told you about light, didn’t I?” the old man queried himself.

“You told me,” Connie replied softly.

The old man stared at her suddenly, as if he had just noticed she were here. “You’re not like the others,” he accused her. “You’re no paid courier. What’s in this for you, boy?”

“Girl,” Connie corrected him quietly, taking no offense. It was a common error. Her big-boned structure made her look masculine, she knew that. Maybe puberty would change that, but she doubted it. “Doing it as a favor for Tug. I work on his ship,” and she stopped, wondering if she had said too much.

“You do, huh? Huh. How about that. That used to be my job, I was Talbot, the crewman. Until that prick fired me. Well, you watch these tapes, too, then. Learn a little about your roots, about what you really are. What we were.” He didn’t hand the pack to her. His old hand just let go of the straps, so they fell limply on the floor. He leaned his head back on the chair, sighed heavily. “Door’ll lock behind you,” he told her, and sat still, breathing.

Connie accepted the dismissal and stooped to take the straps of the carry sack. It was heavy, too heavy for her to carry comfortably in station gravity. Weighed like old-generation plastic, the stuff that was illegal to possess in any form. She looped the woven straps over her arm and blundered her way out. After the metal grille swung shut behind her, she realized she had not said good-bye. It didn’t matter; he wouldn’t have noticed.

She trudged off down the corridor, trying to walk as if she were used to both station gravity and the load she was carrying. Paranoia, she told herself, was making her imagine that all the old people loitering and chatting in the courtyard turned to watch her go, and that their eyes lingered on her sack and their withered pink mouths worked more busily after she had passed.

She glanced down once at her burden and was dismayed at how the carry sack gaped open. The tumble of illicit plastic recordings was visible to anyone’s curious glance. She tucked it uncomfortably under her arm, hoping her sleeve covered most of it. She got back onto Main Corridor G and found a
commercial sector. Here her bulging bag didn’t look so out of place.

She entered the first garment shop she came to and attempted some hasty shopping. Up until this moment, she hadn’t intended to buy anything on this shore leave. The bright new colors and the gauziness of the new generation of fabrics almost overwhelmed her with indecision. She reminded herself that all she wanted was something to stuff in the top of the carry sack to conceal the plastic. Finally she selected a fluffy shawl, and then, in a sudden burst of impulsiveness, one of the new brightly colored long skirts and tunics so many of the women seemed to be wearing. She handed the bored clerk her consumer chit and then her credit card. He keyed in her purchases without looking at her, then ran her consumer chit to make sure she wasn’t over her allotment for clothing commodities. He considered his screen for a moment, leaned closer as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, and then looked up at her.

“As near as I can read this,” he said carefully, “you have about thirty years of commodity allotment waiting to be used.”

Connie smiled embarrassedly, wishing only that the transaction were over and that her purchases were in her bag covering her guilty cargo. “Mariner,” she explained, gesturing at her orange coveralls. “I’m out in deep space a lot. No time to use up my allotments when I’m in port.”

“Oh, yeah?” A faint stirring of interest in the clerk’s brown eyes. “You sure you want to buy this skirt then? The degradable on it is only three years. Probably just rot away in your locker while you’re in Waitsleep. Unless you preservegas it. I hear you guys are allowed to do that.”

“I’ll gas it,” Connie promised him, and tried to gather up her purchases. He let her get the shawl, tunic, and skirt billowed into her carry bag, but stood holding her cards.

“You got a lot of back clothing allotment on here,” he told her, as if it were something she hadn’t understood.

“I know.” She held out her hand for the cards.

He ignored the gesture, but put an elbow on the counter and leaned across it to say quietly. “I know people who would be interested in that back allotment.”

“What?” Connie asked stupidly, instinctively drawing back from him.

“Everybody does it, anymore. You don’t need it, so pass on the allotment to someone who does. Gotta be your size, of course, but the customer tells us what she wants, she pays, but it racks up against your allotment, and she puts a generous credit to your account. Of course, you’re not exactly the most common size, but there’s still a market for all that unused allotment.”

Connie tightened her grip on the carry bag. Had he seen the plastic? She didn’t think so. So why was he approaching her with something so monstrously illegal? “I’m a good citizen,” she informed him faintly.

Something in his face changed. It wasn’t what she had expected. Instead of recoiling, his eyes widening as he realized he’d approached an honest citizen with his criminal plan, he just sighed and rolled his eyes, as if he’d told her a joke and she’d asked him to explain it. With a condescending sneer, he flipped her cards onto the counter so that they nearly slid off. She almost dropped her bag catching them. “Of course you’re an honest citizen,” he said sarcastically. “We all are. Aren’t we? Aren’t we all just perfectly adjusted and totally happy being good little citizens? Besides”—he leaned across the counter toward her and lowered his voice to a nasty register—“I didn’t offer to do anything illegal. I was just telling you that such a market existed. The very fact that you thought I was making you an illegal offer probably means that you are unadjusted, with illegal longings just lurking all through your brain. So think on that, good citizen.”

He pushed himself back abruptly and stalked off across the shop, muttering to himself about “good citizens.” Connie stared mutely after him, then stuffed her cards into her carry bag with her new garments and the illegal plastic recordings. She hurried out of the store and down Main Corridor G, feeling obscurely shamed and guilty. But hadn’t she done what was right? Shouldn’t she feel virtuous and pleased with herself? The goal of the consumer allotment chit system was to prevent excess consumption of goods, a behavior that always resulted in needless harvest of raw materials and future waste. By refusing to sell her own excess allotment, she had worked within the system to prevent waste and discourage greed for
consumer commodities. She had taken the correct action. So why did she feel foolish and embarrassed? Why was she hurrying away as fast as she could go with the heavy bag, desperately afraid that mocking laughter would follow her?

She was halfway back to the dock before she realized she had hours left of leave time. Forget it. She just wanted to get back to Evangeline and a world where the rules were hard and fast. She shifted her carry bag, set her face, and walked on.