The Greatship (45 page)

As a species, the J’Jal were neither wealthy or powerful, but there were a few individuals of enormous age who had prospered in a gradual, relentless fashion.  On far flung worlds, they served as cautious traders and inconspicuous landowners and sometimes as the bearers of superior, profitable technologies; and while they would always be alien, they had adapted well enough to feel as if they were home.

Then the Great Ship arrived, and their young, arrogant human cousins promised to carry them across the galaxy—for a fee.  The boldest of these wealthy J’Jal left a hundred worlds behind, spending fortunes for the honor of gathering together.  They had no home of their own, yet it was easy to hope that a new planet was waiting, reminiscent of their cradle world, yet for some reason empty, waiting to be claimed as their own.  Some of the J’Jal believed that given time and small measures of luck, they would perhaps even match the human accomplishments, blending into the ranks of their highly successful relatives.

“But neither solution gives me pleasure,” said the gentleman wearing red.  “The boundaries between the species are a lie and impermanent, and I hope for a radically different future.”

According to his official biography, Cre’llan was approximately the same age as
Homo sapiens
.

“What’s your chosen future?” Pamir inquired.

The smile was bright and a little cold.  “My new friend,” the J’Jal said, his voice nearly human.  “I think you already have a fair assessment of what I wish for.  And more to the point, I think you couldn’t care less about any dreams or utopias that I happen to entertain.”

“I do have guesses,” Pamir agreed.  “And you’re right, I don’t give a shit about your paradise.”

Sorrel sat beside her ancient husband, fondly holding his hand.  Divorced or not, she missed his company.  They looked like lovers waiting for the holo portrait to be taken.  With a whisper, she warned Cre’llan, “He suspects you, darling.”

“Of course he does.”

“But I told him…I explained…you can’t be responsible for any of this…”

“Which is the truth,” the J’Jal replied, his smile turning into a grim little sneer.  “Why would I murder anyone?  How could it possibly serve my needs?”

The J’Jal’s home was near the bottom of Fall Away, and it was enormous.  This single room covered nearly a square kilometer that was carpeted with green timber and quick little streams, and the ceiling was so high that a dozen tame star-rocs could circle above and never brush wings.  But all of that grandeur and wealth was dwarfed by the outside view:  The braided rivers that ran down the middle of Fall Away had been set free some fifty kilometers above their heads, every diamond tube ending at the same point, their contents exploding forth under extraordinary pressure.  A flow equal to ten Amazons roared past Cre’llan’s home, water and ammonia mixing with a spectacular array of chemical wastes and dying phytoplankton.  Aggressive compounds battered each other and reacted, bleeding colors in the process.  Shapes appeared inside the wild foam, and vanished again.  A creative eye could see every face that he had ever met, and he could spend days watching for the faces that he had worn during his own long, strange life.

The window only seemed to be a window.  In reality, Pamir was staring at a sheet of high-grade hyperfiber, thick and impervious to most any force nature could muster.  The view was a projection, a convincing trick.  Nodding, he said, “You must feel remarkably safe, I would think.”

“I sleep quite well,” Cre’llan replied.

“Most of the time, I can help people with their security matters.  But not you.”  Pamir was being entirely honest.  “I don’t think the Master Captain has this much security.  That hyperfiber.  The AI watchdogs.  Those blood-and-meat hounds that sniffed our butts on the way in.”  He showed a wide smile, and then mentioned, “If I’m not mistaken, you would never have to leave this one room.  For the next ten thousand years, you could sit where you’re sitting today and eat what falls off these trees, and no one would be able to touch you.”

“If that was what I wished, yes.”

“But he is not the killer,” Sorrel muttered.

Then she stood and stepped away from the ancient creature, her hand grudgingly releasing his grip.  Pamir watched her approach, how she looked at him without looking, settling on the ground before him.  Suddenly the woman looked exceptionally young, serious and determined.  “I know this man,” she said.  “You have no idea what you’re suggesting, if you think that he could hurt anyone, for any reason.”

“I know the species,” Pamir said.  “In fact, I once lived as a J’Jal.”

Sorrel leaned away from him, taken by surprise.

“I dyed my hair blue and tinkered with these bones, and I even doctored my genetics far enough to pass half-assed scans.”  Pamir was telling too much.  Nonetheless, he didn’t feel as if he had any choice.  “I even kept a J’Jal lover.  For a while, I made her happy.  But she saw through my disguise, and I had to steal away in the middle of the night.”

The other two stared at him, bewildered and deeply curious.

“Anyway,” he continued.  “During my stay with the J’Jal, a certain young woman came of age.  She was very desirable.  Extraordinarily beautiful, and her family was one of the wealthiest onboard the Ship.  Before that year was finished, the woman had acquired three devoted husbands.  But someone else fell in love with her, and he didn’t want to share.  One of the new husbands was killed.  After that, the remaining two husbands went to the public hall and divorced her.  They never spoke to the girl again.  She was left unattached, and alone.  What rational soul would risk her love under those circumstances?”  Pamir shook his head, studying Cre’llan.  “As I mentioned, I ran away.  But I kept track of the community, and several decades later, an elder J’Jal proposed to the widow.  She was lonely, and he was not a bad man.  Not wealthy, but powerful and ancient, and in some measure, wise.  So she accepted his offer, and when nothing tragic happened to her new husband, everyone understood who ordered the killing.  And not only that, but they accepted it too, in pure J’Jal fashion.”

With a flat, untroubled voice, Cre’llan said, “My soul has never been thought of as jealous.”

“Yet I am accusing you of jealousy,” Pamir countered.

Silence.

“Conflicts over females are ordinary business for some species,” he continued.  “Monopolizing a valuable mate can be a good evolutionary strategy, for the J’Jal as well as others.  And ten million years of civilization hasn’t changed what you are, or what you can be.”

Cre’llan snorted.  “I would never embrace that old barbarism.”

“Agreed.”

The green gaze narrowed.  “Excuse me, sir.  I don’t think I understand.  What are you accusing me of?”

“This is a beautiful, enormous fortress,” Pamir continued.  “And as you claim, you’re not a jealous creature.  But did you invite these other husbands to live with you?  Did you offer even one of them your shelter and all of this expensive security?”

Sorrel glanced at the J’Jal, her breath catching.

Pamir said, “You didn’t offer because of a very reasonable fear:  What if one of your houseguests wanted Sorrel for himself?”

The tension was physical, ugly.

“In your mind, every other husband was a suspect, with the two harum-scarums being the most obvious candidates.”  He looked at Sorrel again.  “Gallium would be his favorite—a relatively poor entity born into a biology of posturing and violence.  His species is famous for stealing mates.  Both sexes do it, every day.  But now Gallium is dead, which leaves your husband with no one to worry about, it seems.”

“Except I am not the killer,” Cre’llan repeated.

“Oh, I agree,” Pamir said.  “You’re innocent of that crime, yes.”

The statement angered both of them.  Sorrel spoke first, asking, “When did you come to that conclusion?”

“Pretty much the moment I learned who your husbands were,” Pamir said, sitting forward in his chair, staring out at the churning waters.  “No, Cre’llan isn’t the murderer.”

“You understand my nature?” the J’Jal asked.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t particularly matter.”  Pamir laughed.  “No, you’re too smart and far too old to attempt this sort of bullshit with a human woman.  Talk all you want about every species being one and the same.  But the hard sharp damning fact is that human beings are not J’Jal.  Very few of us, even under the most difficult circumstances, will be able to ignore the fact that their spouse appears to be a brutal killer.”

Cre’llan gave a little nod, the barest smile showing.

Sorrel stood, nervous hands clenching into fists.  She looked vulnerable and sweet and very sorry.  The beginnings of recognition showed in the blue-white eyes, and she started to stare at the J’Jal, catching herself now and forcing her eyes to drop.

“And something else was obvious,” Pamir said.

With a dry little voice, Cre’llan asked, “What was obvious?”

Pamir said nothing.

“What do you mean?” Sorrel asked.

“Okay,” Pamir said, watching her face and the nervous fists.  “Let us suppose that I’m killing your husbands.  I want my rivals dead, and I want a reasonable chance of surviving to the end.  Since Cre’llan enjoys the most security…better than everyone else combined, probably…I would hit him before he smelled the danger…”

That earned a cold silence.

Pamir waved one hand, then the other, as if brushing away some little irritant.  “The killer wants the husbands out of your life.  From the start, I think he knew exactly what was required.  The other ten husbands had to be murdered, since they loved you deeply and you seemed to love them.  But this gentleman J’Jal…well, he’s a different conundrum entirely, I’m guessing…”

Cre’llan appeared interested but distant.  When he breathed, it was after a long breathless pause, and he sounded a little weak when he said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“You told me,” Pamir said to Sorrel.

“What did I tell you?”

“How you met him during the cruise.  And what happened to you and your good friend just before you went to bed with this alien man.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Cre’llan said, “Be quiet.”

Pamir felt a pleasant nervousness in his belly.  “Cre’llan wanted you, I’m guessing.  He wanted you very badly.  You were a wealthy, unattached human woman.  The Joining can talk all they want about the equality of the species, but the J’Jal adore their cousins.  And you would bring him a generous amount of status.  But seducing you was going to be a challenge, which is why Cre’llan paid your friend to vanish on the ice in Greenland, faking her own death.”

She said, “No.”

“He wanted to expose you emotionally, with a dose of mortality.”

“Stop that,” she told him.

Cre’llan said, “Idiot,” and little more.

“The AI guide was right,” Pamir told her.  “The chances of a mind surviving the weight of that ice and the grinding against the hyperfiber shards…well, I found it remarkable to learn that your good friend was found alive.

“So I made a few inquiries.

“I can show you, if you wish.  A trail of camouflaged funds leads from that woman back to a company formed just hours before her death.  The mysterious company made one transfer of funds, declared bankruptcy and dissolved.  Your skiing partner was the recipient.  She was reborn as a very wealthy soul, and the principal stockholder in that short-lived company happened to have been someone with whom your first lover and husband does quite a lot of business.”

Sorrel’s mouth closed and opened, in slow motion, and then it began to close again.  Her legs tried to find the strength to carry her away, but she looked about for another moment or two, finding no door or hatchway to slip through in the next little while.  She was caught, trapped by the awful and true.  And then, just as Pamir thought that she would crack into pieces, the young woman surprised him.

Calmly, she told Cre’llan, “I divorce you.”

“Darling–?” he began.

“Forever,” she said.  Then she pulled from a pocket an ordinary knife.  A sapphire blade no longer than her hand was unfolded, and it took her ten seconds to cut the Darmion crystal out of her chest—ripped free for the second time in as many days—and before she collapsed, she flung the gory gift at the stunned, sorry face.

Pamir explained what had happened as he carried her into the apartment.  Then he set her on a great round bed, pillows offering themselves to her head while a small autodoc spider-walked its way across the pale blue sheets, studying her half-healed wound before opening more penetrating eyes, carefully examining the rest of her miserable body.

Quietly, the apartment said, “I have never known her to be this way.”

In his long life, Pamir had rarely seen any person as depressed, as forlorn.  Sorrel was pale and motionless, lying on her back, and even with her eyes open, something in her gaze was profoundly blind.  She saw nothing, heard nothing.  She was like a person flung off the topmost portion of Fall Away, tumbling out of control, gusts of wind occasionally slamming her against the hard walls, battering what couldn’t feel the abuse anymore.

“I am worried,” the apartment said.

“Utterly reasonable,” Pamir said.

“It must be a horrid thing, losing everyone who loves you.”

“But someone still loves her,” he countered.  Then he paused, thinking hard about everything again.

“Tell me,” he said.  “What is your species-strain?”

“Is that important?”

“Probably not,” said Pamir.

The AI described its pedigree, in brief.

“What’s your lot number?”

“I do not see how that matters.”

“Never mind,” he said, walking away from their patient.  “I know enough as it is.”

Pamir ate a small meal and drank some sweet alien nectar that left him feeling a little sloppy.  When the head cleared, he slept for a minute or an hour, and then he returned to the bedroom and the giant bed.  Sorrel was where he had left her.  Her eyes were closed now, empty hands across her belly, rising and falling and rising with a slow steady rhythm that he couldn’t stop watching.

“Thank you.”

The voice didn’t seem to belong to anyone.  The young woman’s mouth happened to be open, but it didn’t sound like the voice he expected.  It was sturdy and calm, the old sadness wiped away.  It was a quiet polite and rather sweet voice that told him, “Thank you,” and then added, “For everything, sir.”

The eyes hadn’t opened.

She had heard Pamir approach, or felt his presence.

He sat on the bed beside her, and after a long moment he said, “You know.  You’d be entitled to consider me—whoever I am—as being your main suspect.  I could have killed the husbands, and I certainly put an end to you and Cre’llan.”

“It isn’t you.”

“Because you have another suspect in mind.  Isn’t that right?”

She said nothing.

“Who do you believe is responsible?” he pressed.

Finally, the eyes pulled open, slowly, and they blinked twice, tears pooling but never quite reaching the depth where they would flow.

“My father,” she said.

“He killed your husbands?”

“Obviously.”

“He’s light-years behind us now.”

Silence.

Pamir nodded, and he waited until the moment felt right, and then he asked, “What do you know about your father?”

“Quite a lot,” she said.

“But you’ve never seen him,” he reminded her

“But I’ve studied him.”  She shook her head and closed her eyes again.  “I’ve know his biography as well as I can, and I think I know him pretty well.”

“He isn’t here, Sorrel.”

“No?”

“He emigrated before you were born.”

“That’s what my mother told me.”

Pamir leaned closer, adding, “What did she tell you about the man?”

“That he is strong and self-assured.  That he knows what is right and best.  And he loves me very much, but he couldn’t stay with me.”  Sorrel chewed on her lip.  “He couldn’t stay here, but my father has agents and ways, and I would never be without him.  Mother promised me.”

Pamir just nodded.

“My father doesn’t approve of the Faith.”

“I can believe that,” he said.

“My mother admitted, once or twice…that she loved him very much, but he didn’t have a diplomat’s ease with aliens.  His heart can be hard, and he has a capacity to do awful things, if he sees the need…”

“No,” Pamir whispered.

The pale blue eyes opened.  “What do you mean?”

“Your father didn’t do any of this,” he said.  Then he thought again, saying, “Well, maybe a piece of it.”

“What do you mean?”

Pamir set his hand on top of her mouth, lightly.  Then as he began to pull his hand back, she took hold of his wrist and forearm, easing the palm back down against lips that pulled apart, teeth giving him a tiny swift bite.

A J’Jal gesture, that was.

He bent down and kissed the open eyes.

Sorrel told him, “You shouldn’t.”

“Probably not.”

“If the murderer knows you are with me…”

He placed two fingers deep into her mouth, J’Jal fashion.  And she sucked on them, not trying to speak now, eyes almost smiling as Pamir calmly and smoothly slid into bed beside her.