The Second Star, page 17
Alaya, who still hadn’t looked up and sat crying quietly, gave a sudden gulp as she tried to catch her breath and buried her face deeper into her hands.
“Is she…?”Stella began, and then, more softly, “Who is she?”
“She was Alaya when she heard Martin Peck barking orders, and she knew what that meant,” Han said. “She began to cry, and then Meggie came out and swore she was going to be just fine, but if Meggie is speaking you know she’s lying about something. And then Lillibet came out and she’s been sobbing her heart out ever since. Lillibet is only twelve, and is devastated. She knew Boz, and she also knew… well there are the children...”
“To her, it’s like she’s lost a whole bunch of friends,” Stella said. “Listen, I need to tell you—I’ve been told to write up a report for Martin and until he gets through that I am not to be allowed to come back to you guys—so I might be away for a bit. Please let the others know…”
“Aw,” Han said, and when he looked up Stella realized with a sinking feeling that it was no longer the Captain. It was Hal’s glittering eyes, flirtatious even under the tragic circumstances, that looked back at her.
“Oh, not now,” she said. “Please, can you remember to tell the others? One of you?”
“Sure,” Hal said. “I’m going to miss you.”
“Somebody better get Alaya… Lilibet… to bed, and it better not be you,” Stella said. “Come here, Lil. Hal, go to bed.”
“Will you come tuck me in?”
“No!” Stella said. “We don’t have time for this. Go.” She looked up, and saw Jerry Hillerman standing poised in the doorway to his quarters, watching. She stared at him for a moment, trying to match the expression on his face to the personalities that she knew, and found herself at a loss—it was himself, and yet not quite himself, as though she were looking at him as a mirror image rather than the original entity. In this enclosed little world where personalities shifted like water she might have expected to see something different on him, something perhaps even unfamiliar—but that was just it, this wasn’t unfamiliar, just unexpected, as though she was not looking at Jerry but rather at…
“Rob?” she said out loud, weirded out, knowing that she was looking at one twin and yet somehow convinced that she was gazing on his brother.
“Yes,” he said instantly, and it was impossible—impossible—this was messing with even the basic syndrome that Stella thought she knew. But she was faced with the reality of it—that one of the personalities that Jerry Hillerman carried inside of him was actually his twin brother Rob. Some of me spilled into him, he had said to her once, in a previous conversation. She had not understood, then. Did he mean this? That the twins were literally interchangeable?
Her mind was already spinning like a top and she had no room for this new impossibility, none at all—except that this was exactly what she needed right now. Rob was someone she trusted, and that she needed someone she trusted to deal with Alaya/Lilibet in a vulnerable moment.
“Fine,” she said, shaking her head. She gently extricated Alaya—or Lilibet—from within the pouting Hal’s encircling arm, and guided her first to her feet and then the reluctant few steps forward. “We can talk about that later. For now, help me. She’s young and vulnerable right now—Lilibet—take her to her room. Just get her to her bed and put a blanket over her and make sure she’s safe and cared for. Don’t worry about anything else right now, just do that.”
Jerry took the extra few steps between him and Alaya and put a gentle coaxing arm around her. “Come on then, Lil. Come with me. Gently now. Easy.” He glanced back over his shoulder at Stella. “I’m on it. Thank you.”
“Jer… Rob…” Stella stumbled on the names, still twisted by the whole thing, not knowing what to call him, what he would respond to. But that didn’t matter. She said, quickly, “I’m sorry. I am really sorry. I can only begin to imagine what this means to you all.”
He began to say something, and then changed his mind, and simply nodded, turned away, guided Alaya towards her cubicle.
When Stella turned back, Han—or Hal—had gone. But the door to Lily Mae’s cubicle was still open, and Stella crossed over to peer inside.
Philip was still there, perched on a chair beside the bed on which Lily Mae lay apparently asleep, and he looked up with a tired smile as Stella entered.
“Is she okay?” Stella asked.
“I talked them into letting me stay with her for a while,” Philip said. “She may or may not be really asleep, I’m no judge, but her breathing changes—and I think she’s awake—but if I try and speak to her she won’t respond, not to any of the names I know.” His eyes warned Stella—don’t try the alien name. She might respond and then there will be hell to pay. Not now. Not yet. “How are the others? I saw Han trying to comfort Alaya and I offered to come help but he waved me away…”
“That’s because she was three different people at some point during the past half hour,” Stella said. “I don’t know that this hasn’t changed the situation for the worse. There were six of them—and God alone knows how many hangers-on inside each of them—but they were there for each other, the only thing that any one of them had, this tight group of six which has gone through hell together and is now adrift in time and space, stuck here with one another and nobody else… they might be forgiven for thinking that there is nobody else, not for them, not ever again, not here. And now one is gone. And there’s grief, and then there’s something I don’t even have a name for, an unspeakable loss of something or somebody that is literally irreplaceable. And now Martin wants to pull me from the group until he can stroke his ego back into place, with him as the controlling authority. He was put in charge here, and he takes that very seriously. He wants a report on his desk, and until he’s finished ‘assessing’ it I’m not supposed to come back and talk to the crew. Now, when they need me… when they need somebody… the most.”
“Do you want me to speak to him?” Philip asked. “I mean, I don’t know how much it would help, but…”
“Hell, no, he’s focused on me—don’t get on his radar, he might ban you too and then where would they be?” Stella said. She drew a weary hand through her hair. “It’s been a long night. And I’m supposed to be working on a report to top all reports. I have no idea when I’ll be allowed to come back, but…”
“I’ll keep you up to speed,” Philip said.
Stella looked down on Lily Mae, lying very still with her eyes closed and her lips parted very slightly, giving her face an expression that looked like she had just seen something wonderful and had responded with an awed disbelief.
“Poor woman,” Stella said, her voice very low, pitched just for Philip and turning away so that Lily Mae would not pick up anything. “How much did she hear, do you think? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if whoever overheard Martin’s commands is now no longer in any doubt that the only way out of this trap they’re in is feet first through that morgue—and probably in pieces, at the end of it. Their souls are in tattered streamers, and now they’re completely certain that their bodies are going to end under a hacksaw. And after all that, he pulls me out of here and leaves them to fend for themselves…”
“I think she really is just asleep,” Philip said.
Stella caught his eye and tried to convey a warning—she may be, but I saw what I saw and we both know that there may be more to this—and then sighed, shrugging her shoulders.
“And now there’s a whole new thing,” she said, “and just when I should be getting to the bottom of it… Philip, Jerry Hillerman just turned into Rob. That’s a new wrinkle.”
“What, now?” Philip asked, rousing.
“Just what I said. Jerry was there, and then he was just Rob in Jerry’s body…”
“Are you sure you didn’t just mix them up? I mean, it’s easy enough to do…”
“They’re identical enough but I think I can tell them apart by now,” Stella said. “They really are different enough on the inside for that to show. At least for someone like me. But in this total scattercrash of personalities… they have picked up… each other’s?” She shook her head. “Damn. Damn it all. Every time I think I am a step ahead I get thrown right back into the quicksand. I need to go and think about this, on top of writing Martin’s wretched report, justifying a perfectly justifiable decision in a way that’s going to let his own self come out of this smelling sweet to his superiors…”
“God go with you,” Philip said.
“You know I don’t…” Stella began, but Philip raised a hand to stop her, the corners of his mouth lifting into a small smile.
“You might not but I do and it is a blessing to send you out with a blessing,” he said. “Good luck, if you prefer. You do believe in luck, at least?”
“I drag my own with me,” Stella said, with a quick tired grin, “and it’s usually bad. But thanks for the sentiments. Appreciate it. You should get some shut eye too at some point—there is no good reason for you to keel over too, and I swear, at this point if I lose you I’ll just throw in the towel.”
Philip reached out a hand to gently squeeze her shoulder. “You don’t lose me easily,” he said. “Go, I’ll hold the barricades.”
By the time she put together a careful report which both blazed with truth and hid massive lies of omission underneath that blaze, Stella barely had enough juice left to send the document to Martin Peck before collapsing into bed to snatch a few hours of restless sleep. She woke raw, headachey, even less able than usual to suffer fools, and girded her loins for another round with Martin later that day. She was not going to allow him to let the Parada six… five, now, she corrected herself grimly… swing in the breeze without access to any support or assistance, and for better or worse she was that support. Philip was a good second, but he was a stopgap measure in this situation. He could hear their confessions. He could not help them—except through shared prayer, for whatever that meant to any of the crew—navigate the crowds they carried inside their psyches.
Even she, Stella, the professional, was finding it difficult to get a handle on this. Letting it all fall on Philip was fair to nobody at all.
She allowed Martin six hours to sit on her report, and then she presented herself at his office.
“He said that he wasn’t to be disturbed,” a young ensign in uniform who was hunched over a computer station in an outer cubby, functioning as secretary and access point guard, said as Stella swept into her presence, rising to her feet in consternation.
“Does he have somebody in there with him?” Stella asked levelly.
“No, but…”
“Then he will see me,” Stella said. “You can tell him, or I can just wait right here. I have no other place to be right now. Your choice.”
The ensign hesitated, and then tapped at a comm unit tucked in her ear.
“Sir,” she began, “I have…”
“We need to talk, Martin,” Stella called out from where she had taken station just outside the office door.
After a moment, there was a click, and the door slid back.
“Get in here, then,” Martin Peck growled ungraciously. The hours that he’d had to digest all the information he had demanded and been given had apparently done nothing to sweeten his mood.
Stella, feeling the flush of adrenaline through her body that she had once dealt with when facing the committee deciding on the fate of the Juno crew, followed his instructions.
For all his love of authority, Martin Peck’s office distinctly lacked grandeur—it was smaller than it needed to be, almost cramped. One entire wall consisted of a large built-in computer screen, on which now several windows with relevant information were open; other than that the room contained only Martin’s workstation and a single other chair. Obviously he did not entertain crowds in here, and there was something about the expressed preference for the one-on-one that actually said quite a lot for his temperament. He didn’t invite her to sit, but standing there made her feel rather like an errant schoolgirl called on the carpet by a stern headmaster so she walked up to the visitor chair and sank into it, her back very straight. Neither of them said anything for a long moment. Martin kept his head half turned away from her, studying the screen wall, but an odd rigidity in his shoulders and a forefinger that kept tapping rhythmically against his other hand where his hands were folded together before him made Stella aware that he wasn’t actually looking at anything on that wall, just staring at that data in silence, making a point, and perhaps waiting for her to move first.
She didn’t have time to play games. So she did exactly that.
“Do you remember the old-fashioned zoos?” she asked, without preamble. Martin did not respond, but he did turn from the wall and fixed that intense stare on Stella instead. Stella’s left hand clenched into a tight fist until her nails dug into her palm, but she didn’t let him derail her. “I do believe I talked of this in terms of a menagerie, from the first moment I walked into this place,” she said.
“You did,” Martin said, not looking around at her. “I think I disagreed with you.”
“I remember seeing videos, reading about those zoos,” Stella continued, undeterred. “There was a time they were really bad. Animals whose natural habitats were enormous—who would in the wild range for miles and control huge swathes of territory—would be locked up in a tiny cage so that visitors could gawk at them. And most of them simply went mad from it, and took to pacing the exact dimensions of their cages. And even if they were taken out of the cages afterwards to try to rehabilitate them it would often just not work. It was as though the size of those cages had become the size of their world and they could no longer comprehend that there was any kind of world outside of that.”
“The Parada crew,” Martin said levelly, “are hardly in a zoo. You are being theatrical.”
“They were shown the biggest territory of all,” Stella said. “We sent them out there, into the vast spaces between the stars, where there were no walls at all. And then we took it all away at a stroke, and here they are, locked into individual little cages and watched every minute of every day with cameras that feed into a surveillance room.”
“There were walls,” Martin said. “Even out there, there were walls. We sent a ship, we hardly sent them naked amongst the stars.”
“The ship was a vessel, a protection, an arrow which was loosed and on which they flew,” Stella said. “But the sense of freedom, that wasn’t contained inside that ship. What you have in your cage, Martin, are six of the freest people you will ever set eyes upon, and they are the very people whom you lock away underground so that they are out of sight, and out of mind…”
“Five,” Martin said, his voice flat and almost entirely without feeling.
“What?” Stella said, derailed.
“Five people. The sixth was thoroughly examined in a post mortem in these hours past, and is on his way to being quietly cremated as we speak.”
A lump rose in Stella’s throat. “What are you going to do with him?”
“We’ll take him back to the stars,” Martin said savagely, and broke. The iciness cracked and what was underneath boiled over. He turned to face her at last. “Do you think we are quite heartless? We know these people are a miracle. But you yourself have now had a decent chance to interact with them. Honestly, Stella. Honestly. Without any hedging, tell me, right now, what your recommendation is. Are they ready to be rehabilitated in any way? Returned to the world which they left two centuries ago and would find it tough to adapt to even if they weren’t otherwise incapacitated?”
“I…” Stella wanted to rush out with a passionate defense, but he had trapped her with that ‘honestly’ and the words stuck in her throat. Of course the Parada people were not ready to re-mingle with the rest of humanity.
It was still not fair.
“The garden,” she said, instead. “I wrote it up for you. The reason I did it… was simply… to unlock the cage. To let them know that they actually were back on Earth, and that it wasn’t just an elaborate ruse being spun for them, a fever dream, a desperate wish, that they weren’t really orbiting around some dead star somewhere and waiting to die and remembering the world that had sent them. It was important, Martin. It really was that important.
“You didn’t think that it was important enough to involve me in the decision?” Martin asked, with deceptive calm.
“I didn’t have time to argue the point with you,” Stella said. “I strongly felt that providing them that anchor—letting them stand on the ground under an open sky—might bring them back to the people who once stepped off that ground to go up into those stars. Did you know that Joe White Elk actually carried a talisman into space with him, a handful of dirt from his home world, a few drops of her water? That it was this that kept him sane and centered while he was out there? Well, none of the Parada people had thought about that. They had no such bridge. They needed to reconnect—perhaps not to the society that’s out there now but to their world, their physical planet, to… to remember that they were back. And it worked. It worked! For a moment, it worked perfectly—they came out with me as themselves, as the Parada crew, they kept everything else, all the other fragments, at bay… for the longest time… they stood there and they looked at the sky and my God, Martin, really, you should have been there to see their faces and the way their eyes opened wide to take it all in—and the roses, the scent of the roses, I wasn’t expecting that but they smelled that and they knew they were home—and it was an unbelievable moment, out there…”
“And then what happened?” Martin asked quietly.
“I… lost control, a little,” Stella said, with passionate desperation. “It was worth it, though. I think I made half a dozen breakthrough insights that stem directly from the garden experience. I think I begin to understand the beginnings of this phenomenon. And if I am right then one of the worst fears the authorities have—that this might be an artefact of interstellar travel—is something that isn’t going to be a problem for future missions. So long as those missions don’t include twins.”
