The D’neeran Factor (36 page)

Another door opened and she looked at a room which burst upon her with the immediate and present sense of a human personality. In the deepest heart of space, centered in humankind's most sophisticated machine, he would have wood. It smiled warmly from walls and she tripped on the hand-pieced carpeting. The great bed drew her. The richly worked counterpane came from the looms of Arrenswood. It looked warm, though the colors danced before her eyes. She lifted it with a trembling hand and slid beneath it, leaving smears of blood. She apologized silently to Jameson and let her head fall with relief. Peace, stability: you could defeat him, but you could not break him.

Do not think of that!
said Leader, and threatened her with a memory of The Questioner but it was weak and far away because Leader lived in this body too and its exhaustion was his too.
I
cannot help it,
Hanna answered, human, female, and felt him drift away. She closed her eyes, comforted. Perhaps he would let her sleep for a while; this was his body too.

*   *   *

When Wildfire slept it was like being at Home, in some ways at least. The undercurrents of dream, the fragments of thought, were alien; but in a way it was a warm sea in which one knew one was not alone; not, in fact, one. The daemons that peopled her brain were a company, a shared reality her waking mind excised from existence, and he could almost forget it was her creation alone, and let himself almost believe it was woven of threads of We, changed but real.

The relief was so great that he wanted to dream with her, but there were other things to be done. He opened her eyes and heard her groan. He hoped she would dream of quiet things, pods and vessels, rooms and structures and houses, as she often did; but sometimes they were open to the wind, ragged, tottering, threatening to go dark and populated by monsters. And Leader was the monster.

Or was it Wildfire herself? Did she see herself as he saw her, as a Render, padding from forest to city? Although Renders were forever extinct; even if here there were worlds of them; even if—

*   *   *

She could smell the millefleurs, and they thought to her. Iledra did not; she only spoke. There was a split in her mind and one side spoke, but the other screamed without words. Here was Leader, an endless succession of Leaders blending into one another back, back to the beginning, outlines blurred and overlapping. She tried to fit into the spectrum and rebounded, reeling at Leader's revulsion. For an instant she saw herself through his eyes. She knew it was herself although her fangs dripped blood and she hissed, scarlet eyes speaking murder. The skies blurred in pain. Beast almost-other she writhed under knives. Their enemy was no-thing; they gathered it in, and harvested her.
YES. YES. YES.
Voluptuous agony; she was ash, assimilated.

*   *   *

He felt the pain of exhaustion in the alien limbs, and the dizziness was physiological. He stumbled against a wall and she nearly woke, but this time it was easy to make her tormented mind stay asleep, because she did not much want to wake up or even, perhaps, live.

The thought gave him pause; he let the fragile frame sag and thought about it. She was wired for self-destruction, in the months past he had seen it running like a silver thread through her thoughts, buried deep but shining sometimes clear and purposeful. She had come to them with it, bringing it like a gift and a readiness, a thing that must ease what they did. It was there long-before in the filament of consciousness the time they almost had her. And afterward: leaping gladly for Bladetree in order to die. And before: something to do with a human war, and were they all like this?

And now it was irreversible. For The Questioner knew intimately the original purpose of the rite, and taught it to her well, though present need called forth a different end.

She dreamed of Renders, and there was no one to soothe her. He was glad enough to stay out of this dream.

He had to feel his way through the vessel, putting one foot in front of another, steadying himself with her hands on the walls. Each touch sensed through alien cells was a shock. He had to let the body rest. But first there were tasks to perform, and he found the laser where she had dropped it and ejected it into space. She would try to damage herself, to die and escape that way, and he could not let her do it.

Then he set course again, and afterward let her head rest on the main control console, wishing he were still hidden from her. Everything had been easier when she did not know he was there, lurking behind her conscious thought, her fear masking his, acting when she slept, night after night matching her knowledge to written symbol…it was so much easier to hide. So much easier. And he might have done it longer and avoided this, except that in the end he could not hide his presence from one dangerous man.

*   *   *

Waking was difficult. It was the most difficult thing she had ever done in her life, because she was drowning. Her lungs were full of amniotic fluid and she fought to be born.

Leader was growing stronger.

I can't wake, I can't, I can't, and I will die.

A hand reached for her, a real hand, human, strong, and pulled her to the surface of consciousness. A shell cracked, and she was born. But when she looked for the hand it was gone. The controls of
Heartworld II
surrounded her, and no one was here except the two of her.

She tried to speak and felt Leader come alert, and ducked out of his awareness. She felt him searching for her, puzzled and alarmed.

She wondered:
How did I do that?

It was midnight at the Center, and her fingers moved in the familiar sequence that would link her room to the library network. She struggled to interpret the Standard symbols she had been reading all her life. Sometimes they shivered into alien notation, and then she could understand. Her telepathic sense had never been this keen and she was on guard, and would not have heard the footstep but felt the intention. And turned off the display and slipped into bed, and someone came in.

Half her self disappeared. She almost felt a pop, and then forgot. She opened her eyes to a room no longer strange and reassured the attendant, and that was how it was done.

If he can go from hiding to control, can I?

She looked through his/her eyes and saw their course was toward a red point in nothingness where the alien ship waited, crewed by her torturers. And came out of hiding and took him by surprise, felt him unbalanced and falling,
said “Cancel course!” before he could react, and felt his rage.

*   *   *

Her strength was terrible. He panted, or she did. They would careen back and forth forever, a pendulum till death overtook them, unless he could secure control. He needed a weapon; not one of matter, for this was his flesh too. But. But.

She moved. He went along, perforce. What weapon was safe to use? What had he used that she had not learned to take and use against him?

One thing. Only one thing.

*   *   *

She felt his intention and hunted for the laser. Maybe this time he could not turn her hand.

It came to her that she had done nothing with these aliens but try to die.

A forgotten reader lay in the lounge. It came to life when she picked it up. Philosophy: elegant abstractions danced before her eyes. She shook her head at them, feeling like a savage. In her universe abstraction had no meaning.

The ship is dying,
she said.
Most of us are gone. We can let them take us prisoner. Or fly into final chaos, and take them with us.

She could not find the laser. She supposed Leader had hidden it with her hands while she slept. There was nothing left to do but dive into a star. She should have gone for Sol at once, while Leader still was shaken. She would try it now. She turned back to the flight deck.

*   *   *

He was weary, weary as she. He had not believed the will to die could be so strong. The Questioner in truth bore a share of the blame. Bladetree, son of Celebrants a thousand generations old, had gotten his first name for a reason. Their voices were fainter to Leader. Bladetree lived
then
in the ancient rite. The aim of
now
was different.

But she feared The Questioner, lyrically though she had responded. The last weapon had worked well so far. He did not like using it, for the trauma made her briefly useless and was torment to him too, but it would stop her long enough.

The Questioner had conditioned her thoroughly. If he must, he would use her living memory again.

*   *   *

She opened her mouth to tell
Heartworld II
what to do and nothing happened. Leader, forewarned, prevented it.

She moved her hands with nightmare slowness, as if many gravities crushed her. But they moved toward an input terminal.

Damn you,
thought Leader, and stopped, shocked. He had thought in words.

The universe narrowed to a keyboard. Her hand wavered; pain assaulted her, top of head to tip of toe. “The body,” said a voice from the past, “forgets pain.” She thought,
no it doesn't, you fool.
She did not remember falling, but she looked up from the floor to the terminal she could not reach.

She made another effort and The Questioner was there, and her vision halved as one eyesocket became charred bone. Pain consumed her intention, and she screamed. She tried to move and it happened again. Tried to move and it happened again.

Leader watched in a certain suspense as the small hand crowded with too many fingers jerked and fell back. Her heartbeat shook him and then she was gone and he lay panting on the floor. When he got up the limbs moved easily, though they hurt and were very tired. She was gone.

He set course once more, one last time. She was gone and it was easier to hold up the universe, now that he was not fighting hers. A little at a time, at least; these controls were all that mattered. He could do it in this body that was used to its brain's commands, used to living solitary. He could do it a little longer. If he were true-Leader he could not have done it at all. But he was Leader-in-her-thoughts, and drew on alien resources.

He thought:
She is the best they have. And she is not good enough.

His/her body needed rest, and so did he. He gave himself a vivid suggestion and went to sleep.

*   *   *

The skin she thought flayed from her face was still there, and both her eyes.

Leader slept.

She said to Starr Jameson, “I am not strong enough.”

He was standing in the corridor, looking at her with friendliness.

“Suicide maneuvers,” he said. “What will you do when youth and luck and brilliance fail you?”

“Fail,” Hanna said. “Again.”

“You are on your feet and he sleeps.”

“Only,” she explained, “if I don't change course. Or try to kill myself. Or—” She considered. “Yes. Or if I try to communicate with anyone. Then he'll wake. And do that again.”

“Well,” Jameson said, “think of something else. Suicide maneuvers indeed! D'you think I'd be where I am today with those tactics?”

She said doubtfully, “What do you suggest?”

“Oh, something more oblique. Keep 'em guessing till the time comes, then go for the throat. That's called diplomacy. It's how you stay on top.”

“Ah,” Hanna said with satisfaction. “I see. But you hated doing it to me, didn't you?”

He said, “You're very pretty, but quite mad, you know.”

“But you are a rock,” she said, “and I have no place to stand.”

He disappeared and she cried out, “Come back!”

But the misty walls sharpened and clarified and she was indisputably alone, and not even a footfall echoed in the corridor.

*   *   *

Leader half-woke at the echo of her soundless plea. It broke through the shadows that hid her, and the poignance of her loneliness made him think of Sunrise. He wished her heartily not to move; their muscles longed for rest. She subsided, falling into denser shadow. The intentions to which he had sensitized himself were absent; otherwise her thoughts were hidden with the trick she had learned from him; but they were on course and alive and would continue so. He was safe. He went back to sleep.

*   *   *

Ignored, forgotten, Hanna went to the yacht's galley, seeking her last hope.
Heartworld II
was big, far larger than a shuttle. One might sometimes use it to take colleagues in the exercise of power from place to place, and entertain them on the voyage. And feed them. And, if they were from certain cultures, give them meat. Which needed to be
carved. In the ancient and most basic way: with a gleaming razor-edged knife.

She thrust the knife into her belt.

Leader would not let her die, but she was a Render. Renders killed.

D
arkness. Sough of breath, heartbeat's drumbeat. Paralysis. Like the months when—I can bear it…Where is she? Hiding not hiding how can she? Only We. They cannot but I am mad he is mad they are mad I am mad. In space a few are mad alone he is mad so he is doubly mad. And I prisoner passenger my body possessed by definition mad.

Do not notice the knife. I cannot find her. Eternities of love and bonds that do not break. I will believe that I will taste her, if not I then other-I the same but not I cannot bear. Such loss. All lost.

If he is mad he cannot be permitted but if I am mad I must not but I am mad and logic fails so

you do not

remember

the knife.

The first Watchsetter is alone in space. Its defenses are thick. Its deflectors overmatch all the creature Wildfire showed Us, all she knows. No stones will pierce this shield.

The First Watchsetter is alone and:
A different color from Our skins, she thought. What difference? What colors did she see that We do not?

The First Watchsetter is alone and the gemstone light of a cooling sun illumes it the color of her blood. At Our backs, ice. A globe of rock and ice and frozen gas; no life here; no life, ever. Before Us the bloody giant dances, doubly escorted.