The Seeds of Time (60 page)

“OK, you’re not going to seduce him.”

“Well, that’s what you want, isn’t it? For me to disarm him in bed?”

“I’m not saying go that far.” He paused.
“Have
you been to bed with him?”

“No! That’s not what our relationship is like.”

“Your relationship. So you have a relationship.”

“No. Yes. I know him, in a way. He doesn’t know me. I guess that’s not a relationship.”

“Right. It’s not.” Ashe pulled her close to him, lowering his voice. “Clio. I don’t ask what you can’t do. But this is war, it’s not pleasant, it means doing some hard things. It means the end of your friendship with Tandy. You’ve chosen. If you’re having second thoughts, I need to know.” He searched her face.

Clio met his eyes. “We’ll steal it during Dive. He’ll be out cold, you can help me search.”

Clio looked down the corridor, thought she saw the
phosphorescence marking his passage. “You touch metal, and leave an imprint. Your skin has some secretion. Be careful of that.”

“Can’t wear gloves around here, can I?”

“I have to go.” Clio moved past him into the center of the corridor. “We’ve got twenty-four hours until Dive. Meet me on the bridge as soon as we hit Dive point.” She turned, but he pulled her back.

“Clio, I hate this. He has some power over you, Tandy does.”

“Jesus Christ, Timothy, leave it alone!”

“No,
you
leave it alone! The moment you think you’ve got a relationship with Jackson Tandy, you’re lost. He’s poison, Clio, a damn army colonel who’d flick you aside in an instant if you got in his way. You don’t mean null to him, Clio. I hope you don’t think otherwise. See the man for what he is and let him go.”

“I have let him go! And it makes it goddamn harder when you keep bringing him up.”

Ashe stood there, his shoulders hunched and massing their energy for a fight, for some physical feat, whereas all he was asked to do was let it be. He glowered. “I hate this,” he said.

“I know, Timothy.” She left him, moving quickly toward the mid-decks ladder, following the snaking course of the corridor, in a hurry all of a sudden to flee the dim recesses of this deep place. At the hatch ladder she stopped, turned around. “I love you,” she said, words spoken to the cool shadows, words too soft to penetrate. She clattered up the rungs.

“You OK, sis?” Petya looked down on Clio as she clutched her sides, trying to keep from shaking. The little white paper cup sat next to her on the gurney, empty of the blue tabs and the red vitamin pills.

“I’m fine. Sometimes, before Dive, I shake a little.”

“Before Dive, you get scared?”

“Sometimes.”

“The pills keep you awake?”

“Yeah, they help.”

“You’re the Dive pilot. You’re supposed to stay awake. If I took pills, I could stay awake?”

“No. Only works on a few people. Are you curious, Petya? About Dive?”

He fiddled with the metal stirrups at the end of the gurney. “I’d like to be awake when everyone else is asleep.”

“Why?”

“It’s like a ghost? You walk around and no one can see you?” He moved to the computers, hit a few keys. Hit them again, though the computer was off. “You think Mom can see us?” he asked, not looking at her.

Clio felt a cold wave ripple up from her stomach.

“Mrs. Looby said if Mom is in heaven she can see everything we do. But if she’s a ghost, that means she’s not in heaven?”

“I don’t know, Petya. I never figured that stuff out. Mom thought that when you die, it’s over.”

“Mom knew it was over?” He had moved to the X-ray machine, probing the lanky extension, jointed, like the long legs of a preying mantis.

Clio sank into memory. The drills at home, the ones that Mother made them practice up until the last time, the time it was no longer a drill. The night it was all over. The drills weren’t like anti-Green drills or fire drills at school, the kind of stupid exercise they made you do for no good reason, and where everyone laughed and never thought the least bit about bombs or fires. The house drills were a different sort. Mom never said “when they come for us,” but underneath her matter-of-fact practice session, underneath the boring race up the stairs to the hidden closet, was the certainty that they would come, someday the race to the closet would be real. They would come onto the porch, hammer at the door. There would be only seconds.

Mom never ran up the stairs for drill. Clio never asked why, and suddenly she felt immensely sad. Not that Mom hadn’t escaped that final night, but that Clio never asked her why. Why she didn’t drill with them. That Clio never asked her mother much of anything, but day after day soared in the
exquisite center of her adolescent self, never asking, never wondering.

“Mom knew?” Petya asked again.

Clio looked up. Looked into his eyes a long while.

“Yes. I guess she did.” Clio felt her mother’s presence in the room, leaning against the counter over there, smoking a cigarette in that hurried, nervous way. Eyes darting, seeing everything.
So, you going to do it? You going to steal this FTL thing?
Clio waited for the cautions, the advice. Mom took a few short puffs, looking keenly at her daughter. She stubbed the cigarette out in the little black ashtray, barely finding room amid the butts.
I know you can do it, hon. You’re smart. Just keep your wits, is all. Nobody can keep you from what you put your mind to. I can bear seventeen years witness to that, gad knows
.

She never could bring herself to say
God
, even casually, even swearing. Well, then, if she didn’t know about God and heaven, she knew no less than Clio. Just knew her daughter. Knew DSDE. Some things are given us to know. Other things, no point wondering.

It was then that the medlab cabin door opened. As it did, it seemed to usher in a cold stream of heavy air. The vision of Mother withered as Ashe came through the door, his face a brittle mask, except for his eyes, which said,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Clio
. Behind him, Jared Licht with a gun. Licht closed the door behind them.

“I’m afraid I’ve got rather bad news,” Licht said to Clio. “Your friend here appears to be in a bit of trouble.” He pushed Ashe toward Clio, so he could cover both of them at once.

“What’s going on, Licht?” Clio said. “You finally had your nervous breakdown?” All the while the air seemed to leave her lungs, her body, as though she were full of holes, holes everywhere.

Licht’s violet eyes burned bright. “Well. What’s going on, as you put it, is that I got ahold of this flashlight.” He drew a flashlight out of his flightsuit pocket. He turned it in his hand for their benefit. “I won’t bother to show you what
it looks like with the lights out, but suffice it to say that it … well, it
glows
, actually. Seems this was the flashlight that Ashe used to lead you out of the big cave down there.” He cocked his head, waiting for a reaction. “Isn’t that a tad strange? I looked about, and found that the whole ship has traces of this—this neon
ooze
. Turns out, it comes from
him
. I’m afraid that just can’t be explained very easily. Or you tell me, Ms. Finn, he’s
your
friend. Has he always
oozed
this way?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Hm. You wouldn’t know. Well, we’ll see. Eventually, it will all come out.”

Clio avoided looking into Ashe’s eyes, couldn’t look at him without giving herself away. Here she was, sitting on the gurney, her every move watched by Jared Licht and his gun. While her body leaked all her courage. So many holes …

“What are you trying to say, Licht? Why don’t you just say it instead of dragging out this little drama.”

“Isn’t it obvious? I think I’ve caught myself an alien. Genuine Nian. Right here in our timid little botanist. A space alien.” He made a face. “Rather lurid, but there you have it.”

“You’ve really gone off the deep end this time, Jared,” Clio said. She took that moment to casually slide off the gurney.

“Wait right there,” Licht said. “I’m toying with the idea that you’re involved in all this. As close as you are to him.”

“Close? Not close at all.”

“Well my, my. The ship springs a leak and how the rats do flee.” He glanced at Petya in the corner. Petya was showing obvious stress, blinking hard at Licht and his gun. “And maybe your brother’s involved. Aiding and abetting. Well. We’ll come up with something.” Licht rummaged through a few drawers, finally finding what he was looking for.

“You are such a career prick, Jared,” Clio said.

Licht turned around, with a syringe in his hand.
Moving up close behind Ashe, he thrust the needle into the exposed part of Ashe’s neck. “A little sedative, to keep our spaceman under control.” Ashe rubbed his neck, then stood swaying a moment before finding a chair and sinking slowly into it.

Petya took a step toward Ashe. “It’s not true?”

Ashe looked up at him. “I’m not a monster, Petya.” His words came slowly, carefully. “I’m just different from you. Whatever they try to tell you … make you believe. Just remember. That I am human like you.”

“Doesn’t even bother to deny it,” Licht said. “He’s just going to roll over for us. No run for the money.”

“I’m sure you were looking forward to practicing your arts, Licht,” Clio said.

He pulled a chair out, sat opposite Ashe. “Why don’t you tell us about it then, Ashe? Since you’re talking freely.”

Ashe rubbed at his neck where the shot went in. He raised his eyes, speaking to Petya. “My world, Petya. It’s a land of vast forest. A beautiful place of … many trees, where people honor the trees and … do no harm to them, live with them. There is no Sickness. No DSDE. Families stay together. Not afraid.”

Licht sighed, waving the gun. “Get to the point.”

“The planet … is a living thing,” Ashe continued. “We live without metal, Petya, and the machines of a metal sort … we live without them. Our cities, our technology—biological. Can you understand that, Petya? We work with the forest … and it grows to our needs. We are much like you. Human, Petya. Some years ago a ship—one of ours—crashed on Niang. Held a precious secret. Secret of how to travel to the stars … without Dive. I tried—tried to keep your army from finding that secret, to keep DSDE from that secret … Once they have it they can conquer worlds. They can conquer my people. Your world is dying, Petya. I don’t want the same thing to happen to mine. I hope you can still be friends with me. If not, it’s OK, just don’t believe them that I’m a monster …” His voice was badly slurred now, and he stopped in confusion.

Petya turned to Licht. His face was tightly stitched up in a frown. “I don’t think you should point a gun at Timothy.”

Licht stood up in alarm as Petya took a step toward him. Clio jumped in front of Petya, putting her hand on his chest to stop him. She turned to Licht. “He’s just concerned about the gun.”

Licht waved the gun at them. “Tell him to sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down,” Petya said, frowning mightily.

“Petya!” Clio hissed.

“You shouldn’t point guns at people?” Petya said.

Licht drew himself up, growing calm. “I’ll warn him one more time. I have a dangerous criminal in my custody. If your brother threatens me in any way, I’ll shoot him.”

Petya shoved Clio aside. “I don’t like you,” he said to Licht.

Licht aimed down the length of the barrel, cocked the gun. Clio flew in front of Petya once more. “Licht! Don’t shoot! If you kill me you’re in deep shit. You can’t get back without me.”

“Stand aside,” Licht commanded.

Ashe rose, wobbling. “I’m your prisoner. Why don’t you just turn me in and get it over with?”

Licht’s face turned slightly toward Ashe, gun still pointed at Clio. He shook his head, smiling. “You’re crazy, Clio Finn,” he said. “I almost killed you.” He looked at Ashe, nodded at the door. “Let’s go.”

As Ashe reached the door, Licht stopped. “That brother of yours, Clio. He’s a menace. He should be put down. Keep him in line or someday I
will
put him down.” He nodded to Ashe, who turned to open the medlab door.

“For now,” Licht said, “I think it’s Ashe who’ll be put down. Like a dog.”

They left the room. Just as the door swung shut, Petya bolted past Clio, and burst into the corridor after them. Clio was a long second behind him, but soon enough to see Petya stumbling into the corridor crying “No, no!” and a startled
Licht sweeping his booted foot out. In the next moment—a moment too short to measure, but embedded ever after as a whole scene in Clio’s mind—Licht turned to watch Petya crash to his knees, and then Clio saw Licht’s black-shirted arm bring the gun to the back of Petya’s head, which was tilted slightly toward the floor, as though for execution. As Clio threw herself forward too late to stop him, an explosive report filled her ears, and she heard herself screaming, screaming as her eyes soaked in the color red from all directions.

At the same moment Clio saw in her peripheral vision that someone else was standing there, a woman, and then Jared Licht fell forward and a spray of blood appeared on the bulkhead. Licht collapsed on the deck, unmoving, while Petya removed his hands from his ears and peered over at Licht’s body.

Voris stood there, gun pointing now toward the floor. “Is he dead?” she asked.

The side of Licht’s head was gone. No one answered.

She wiped at a few spatters of blood on her sleeve, smearing them. Her whole flight suit was pockmarked with Licht’s blood. “He was going to shoot Petya,” she said. “Right here in the corridor, in the head, like an execution.” She looked over at Clio. “That can’t happen here.”

Crew came running, stopped when they saw the body, and Voris with her gun. “I had to kill him, didn’t I?” She looked at the crew members. A trickle of blood coursed down her cheek like a tear. “Petya was on his knees and he was going to shoot him in the head. Just kill this innocent boy, shoot him in the head. Do we let people do that, and just stand by, and do nothing? Stand by and do nothing?”

Clio stepped across Licht’s body and kneeled beside Petya, folding her arms around him. She looked past his trembling shoulder to the gathering crew. “Call the captain,” she said. Then she looked up at Voris, who stood holding the gun loosely by her side as though her arm were dead.