Nancy Kress (36 page)

“Still,” Emily said, “filter masks might help.”

Sam said, “The only thing that’s going to help is to kill them the second they step off their shuttle.”

Kella gasped. And Cord, unable to contain himself any longer, burst out, “Don’t you touch them!”

Deep silence fell over the room.

Cord looked at the faces. Keith, his brother, nodding slightly. Kella, with Lillie’s gold-flecked gray eyes, creasing her forehead in anxiety. The bitter downturning curves of Aunt Robin’s mouth. Rafe, his face clouded, remembering some past event unimaginable to Cord. Jody, who neither had known the pribir nor was their product, warily waiting. Emily, her pale skin mottled with suppressed emotion. And Dr. Wilkins, tired, his neck marred by the start of still another purplish skin cancer that he hadn’t yet had time to inject.

Spring, their eternal peacemaker, had the last word. “Maybe the aliens won’t come down, after all.” But no one believed him.

One day, two days, and the pribir didn’t come down. Cord could no longer smell their image. Felicity gave birth to triplets, all girls. An easy birth, said Carolina, smiling hugely. Not even the threat of aliens could overcome her delight in babies.
“Primita,”
she crooned over one of the small wailing bundles. Little cousin.

Kella had two boys and a girl in the middle of the night. Cord hadn’t even known his sister was in labor.

“Bring Mom to see them,” Kella said to her brothers. She’d already left the birthing house and was sharing one of the small, shifting-occupant houses with Carolina, Jody, and their children, none of whom were present just now. Kella sat up in bed, surrounded by infants. One was asleep, one was nursing, and one lay at the foot of the bed gazing up at Cord from enormous blue eyes exactly like Dakota’s. Cord gazed back because he didn’t want to stare at his sister’s exposed breast. Keith, never modest, said, “I didn’t know you had such great bulbs, sis.”

“Shut up,” Kella said. “Bring Mom.”

“Kella,” Cord said, “we can’t. She’s sedated again. Dr. Wilkins says she might… last longer that way.”

Until the pribir can get here,
they all understood.

Keith said, “Which kid is named after me?”

“None of them, buttlips. This is Sage, that’s Wild Pink, and he’s Dakkie. After his father. Cord, Clari says you’re neglecting her.”

Cord said coldly, “Is that any of your business?”

“Yes. I like Clari. I thought you did, too.”

Cord was silenced. It was hard to be around Clari. Cord couldn’t feel any connection with this new pregnant person Clari had become: weepy, frightened, sometimes even irritable. Clari, who was never irritable. Worse, Cord couldn’t feel any connection with the baby that was supposedly his. Although in truth all the babies seemed to pretty much belong to everybody. The older generation all assumed equal care and interest and responsibility as the infants’ mothers. Kella acted as if her triplets should be just as exciting to Cord and Keith, to Susie and Cavin, as to Dakota. Cord looked resentfully at his sister, in her newfound happy maternal bossiness, and felt more like an outsider than ever.

Keith said, “Not to change the subject, but what’s going on with Mike? Jody says he’s no help with the work because he’s always running off to check on Mom.”

Cord felt warmth flood his face. He’d never told Keith or Kella about their mother and Mike. They both turned to him. “What is it? Cord, you know something!”

“No, I don’t.”

Kella bit her lip critically. “Yes, you do. What’s wrong with you lately? You don’t sit with Clari, you blush about Mike, you skulk around here like a wounded coyote. What’s wrong?”

Cord couldn’t help it; he laughed.
‘“What’s wrong?’
The pribir aren’t arriving, Hannah died of some micro that could still be around, the farm is failing, Sam’s group is ready to shoot the only people who can help us, and Lillie is dying! What’s
wrong?”

Kella said hotly, “I meant with you!”

Keith, in a rare moment of social observance, said, “Cord, why do you always call Mom ‘Lillie’? Like she’s not your mother?”

Cord didn’t answer. He didn’t know why. It had something to do with her remoteness when he was small, or their special understanding after that, or Clari, or something. Before Keith could press him, Emily burst into the room.

“Keith! Shut that window!”

“Why?” Kella demanded. “It’s hot as hell in here already. The babies — “

“The babies are my concern,” Emily said grimly. “And you. We miscalculated. Your generation isn’t safe after all, and … and …” She broke down, gasped for air, pulled herself together.

“One of Angie’s babies just died of a micro. Mutated from the war, Scott says. A micro that must have just blown in on yesterday’s shift in the wind.”

Cord moved slowly to the window and closed it.

If a mutated micro could kill one of Angie’s babies, a baby that had inherited all the protection built into her pribir-designed genes, then it could kill any one of them. Any one of them at all.

“Clari,” he said aloud, and pushed past his brother toward the door. It was blocked by Taneesha, still widely pregnant, her brown eyes opened so wide the whites glittered against her dark skin.

“Cord,” she said, and then stopped.

“What? Get out of my way!”

But she gripped his sleeve, and something in her face stopped him from shaking her off. Her eyes slid sideways toward Emily.

“Let me past!” Emily snapped. “I have to get everybody else inside with closed windows!”

When she was gone, Taneesha clumsily kicked the door closed. “Cord,” she said hoarsely, “they’re here. Down by Dead Men’s Arroyo. A space ship, Gavin saw it come down. They’re here.”

Cord went, and Keith, and Dakota, the only other one of their generation they could instantly find who wasn’t having babies. He’d been on his way to see Kella. Gavin had whispered the news to Taneesha and immediately gone back to the arroyo, to watch the ship. None of the older ones knew yet.

“Just a minute, I have to get something at the big house,” Keith said.

“What? You don’t need anything!” Dakota snapped. “Just go ahead, I’m right behind you.”

Cord and Dakota slipped away from the farm and raced the mile to the arroyo. Late afternoon shadows slanted purple over the ground. The wind had picked up, and Cord felt it blow hot against his face, stinging skin with bits of grit. Keith, a fast runner, caught up with them at the edge of the arroyo.

The ship sat on the far side, motionless. Cord gaped. Used to rough wood, stone, adobe, with small machines hoarded carefully and cared for devotedly, he had never seen so much metal in one place. It was beautiful. Dull silver, or maybe more of a pewter color. Hannah had had pewter candlesticks, heirlooms brought with her from the cities. They were Loni’s now. This ship would make a million candlesticks, Cord thought. As large as the big house, it had what was clearly a door on the side facing away from the farm.

“How did it get down without us seeing it?” Dakota whispered. Cord understood. He felt like whispering, himself.

Gavin said, “It didn’t. It came in … sideways. Riding low over the ground from the east, I don’t know from how far away. It came in so
fast.”
His voice held awe.

Cord slid down into the dry arroyo and started to climb up the opposite side. After a moment, the others followed him. Hesitantly he put one hand on the ship. It felt warm, but no warmer than saddle fittings got from the sun. But this wasn’t saddle fittings, this was a space ship, and it had come from somewhere out there among the stars. He was the first human being to touch it.

If Keith hadn’t dragged him to see Kella’s babies … if Gavin hadn’t encountered Taneesha first in his mad rush to inform somebody, anybody, at the farm … if Emily hadn’t rounded up everybody to go inside and shut the windows …

Inside. They would all be in the big house now, and they’d have already noticed the four boys were missing. They’d make Taneesha tell. Or Spring would track them to the arroyo; Spring could track anything.

“We have to make the pribir come out!” he said. “Or go inside ourselves. We have to warn them the others are mad at them and might—”

“Shit, yes,” Dakota breathed. “How?”

Cord looked at the pewter ship. He walked around to the door and knocked, feeling an absolute fool. Well, the pribir were human, weren’t they? That’s what Dr. Wilkins had said: human DNA. So would they recognize knocking?

“Pam! Pete!” Keith bawled. “We’re here! Can you guys come out a minute?”

“Shit, Keith!” Dakota said. “They’re not kids!”

Keith wasn’t deterred. “Miss Pam! Mr. Pete! Can you come out here a minute? We got something you should know!”

Cord held his breath. Nothing happened.

Keith yelled, “We got sick people who need your gene help! Hannah died, and my mother is sick. Lillie … you remember Lillie, she was on your ship before!”

“And she isn’t going in there again,” another voice said.

Cord whipped around. Sam stood across the arroyo, holding a gun. Behind him were Alex, Bonnie, and Rafe.

Time seemed to stop. Cord took a step forward, then didn’t know what to do. But Sam did. He led the others down the arroyo and up the other side. Unerringly he walked to the side of the ship with the door. Dakota, Cord, and Gavin looked at each other. Keith had disappeared.

“Go back home, you boys,” Sam said.

“We―”

“Go! This hasn’t got a damn thing to do with you. You weren’t even born when those aliens … go home.”

Cord had never liked Sam. Rafe and Alex were all right. Mike — Cord’s feelings about Mike were complicated. But he’d always considered Sam a loudmouth, a bully if anyone would have let him be one, and not even very smart. Cord caught Gavin’s and then Dakota’s eyes, and Gavin started talking.

“Rafe, Alex, Bonnie … you don’t want to hurt the pribir. You know you don’t. Whatever they did before, they might be able to cure Lillie. And maybe prevent another baby dying, like Angie’s baby did. And anyway, do you really think a gun could hurt them? They came all the way from the stars in a ship that twists time! Do you think a Smith & Wesson can stop people like that? You’ll only get yourself killed, maybe.”

Bonnie said, “He’s right, Sam. Rafe and I told you this isn’t the way. We — “

Sam fired at the ship, an obscenely loud sound in the gathering dusk. The bullet ricocheted, not even denting the metal, and flew out over the mesquite. Rafe shouted, “You crazy son of a bitch!” and the door of the ship began to open.

Sam stepped back and prepared to fire again. Before he could, another shot sounded and Sam screamed. He dropped the gun and clutched his right arm. Keith stepped from behind a boulder, holding Jody’s cherished Braunhausen. At the same time a cloud of blue gas jetted out of the ship into Sam’s face. Instantly he crumpled to the ground. Rafe, standing closest to him, swayed and also fell. The door finished opening and two people, a young man and young woman dressed in khaki pants and yellow T-shirts, stepped out. They completely ignored Sam and Rafe on the ground, and Keith holding the gun.

“What have you people been doing!” Pam screamed. “How could you have ruined everything in only fifteen fucking years?”

They were people, Cord would think later. They were humans, or made in the shape of humans, with human brains and human feelings. And they were young, Lillie had said so, said that this was their first job of engineering. Human, young, furious that their work was being ruined. Like little kids when a fort was destroyed by the wind, branches and mesquite and an old blanket all blown and scattered over the ground. So they got mad, they … they had a tantrum. The pribir had a tantrum. They were alien kids.

Cord didn’t think this while he stood gaping at Pam and Pete. He couldn’t think anything. Pam looked in her twenties, maybe, her beautiful face a light brown color framed by soft brown hair parted in the middle and falling to her shoulders. Her skin was flawless: no purplish skin cancers, no lines from squinting into the sun, no windbum, no rough patches from harsh soap. Pete, too. Their clothes looked like something on Net shows from decades ago. They carried nothing.

None of it felt real.

Keith recovered first. He walked straight over to Sam and stood over the body. Cord saw his brother’s lip tremble. Keith said, “Is Sam dead?” He still held Jody’s gun.

Pete snapped, “Of course he’s not dead. Neither of them are. They’ll revive in a few minutes. Give me that ridiculous weapon, please!”