CROSSFIRE Read online

  "No, it's not me," Nan said irritably. And the "blood" was the wrong color, Gail now saw. Too brown.

  Shipley said, with a forced calm that Gail gave him much credit for, "What happened, Naomi? Were you here when the aliens attacked, instead of at the Fur village with Lucy?"

  "No. I was there. This is—fuck it, where's the lab these morons are supposed to have in the middle of their primitive insanity? Did you see Jake or Lucy pass by?"

  Jake was here. Good. Although why was Lucy Lasky with him? If there was one thing this situation didn't seem to need, it was a paleontologist.

  George said, "The rover is behind those trees. See?"

  They hurried toward the dim metal bulk. It was nearly full dark now. Mira City was of course illuminated; night on this plain, lit only by open fires, suddenly seemed very alien to Gail. Did she really belong now to this strange planet, with its cool, fertile beauty and murderous predators? Overhead, strange configurations of stars appeared, along with a pair of too-small moons.

  Inside the lab rover, however, modern Earth abruptly reasserted itself. A Cheyenne tech (and wasn't that contrary to Larry Smith's grand vision?) worked at sophisticated biomed equipment. Seven people lay jammed together over most of the available floor space. All were quiet, probably sedated. Shipley ran an expert eye over them and knelt by a woman with blood-soaked bandages on her exposed belly. Her eyes were closed.

  "What have you given them?" he asked the tech, and Gail wondered if she'd hear of some exotic Earthly herb carried seventy light-years across the void.

  "Assiterline," the tech said and Shipley nodded, apparently satisfied.

  George Fox said, "The report said ten injuries. Are the others able to talk to me?"

  "Yes. Only superficial wounds. Ask at the teepee of Blue Waters."

  "Who's Blue Waters?" George said.

  "The former Larry Smith."

  Blue Waters. Gail stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Yet Shipley had said "something else in mind" in a respectful tone. What in this soft-headed experiment did he see that Gail was missing?

  George said, barely able to restrain his eagerness, "Do you have anything that humans used to strike back with? Anything that might have alien hair or blood or tissue on it?"

  The tech looked at the biologist. She was a short, dumpy woman with startlingly beautiful green eyes. She said quietly, "Better than that. We have an alien corpse. We killed one of them. Out back."

  George was gone instantly. Nan Frayne, who'd been talking to someone outside, pushed her way past Gail. She said to the tech, "Now you have two alien corpses. Or at least the head of one. I want to do some sort of brain scan on this. To see if there are parasites or viruses or something. It's important."

  "No," the tech said. "It's not."

  "Don't you try to tell me—"

  "We don't do brain scans here. This lab is a temporary necessity, to identify those foods and animals we can safely eat, and to treat our people medically while we're adjusting to Greentrees. We have no advanced equipment for meddling with the brain. Eventually we'll destroy this entire rover, and the other two as well. We need nothing from the Volcano Man."

  Nan said, "You're crazy. All of you. You deserve nothing but contempt."

  The tech turned her back on them.

  Gail took Nan by the arm and pulled her out of the rover. "Nan, stop that talk. Now. We are guests here, this subcontinent is Cheyenne land, and we will behave with courtesy and respect. You do that for the Furs, why not for your own species?"

  "If you don't know the answer to that already, you're incapable of understanding my explanation."

  Gail laughed. "You think that sort of sophistry impresses me? Or hurts me, the way you're hurting your poor father? Someone else you don't treat with respect because you, Naomi Shipley Frayne, disapprove of his beliefs. What do you think you are, the standard for the universe? Does the word 'hubris' mean anything to you?"

  "Isn't that what Lahiri always used to accuse you of?" Nan said and stalked off, leaving Gail feeling as if she'd been punched in the stomach. How had that little bitch known ... what had she accessed and where...

  Gail stood still, pulling herself together. It took longer than it should have. Then she turned on her flashlight and set out to look for "the teepee of Blue Waters."

  It sat in the center of the nomad encampment, with two animal skins stretched on poles outside it. This time Gail looked closely at the skins. One was light tan, almost hairless. The other, much smaller, was a gray-purple pelt, also hairless. She remembered George saying that the Furs could not have evolved on Greentrees; their heavy fur belonged to a much colder world.

  How long would it be before the Cheyenne stretched Fur pelts outside their teepees?

  Seeing no way to knock or ring, she lifted the tent flap and waited to be recognized. Larry Smith sat on synthetic rugs in his plastic teepee with five other men and women. They all wore a bizarre combination of Threadmore coveralls, work boots, belts made of some native fiber, and colorful headbands sewn with small glittering nuts, stones, and feathers. The air was blue with a thick, sweet smoke.

  "Come in, Gail."

  "Larry, I—"

  "Not 'Larry,' " he said. "Blue Waters."

  "Okay. Blue Waters, I'd like to talk to you and your ... your tribal council about this attack."

  "We welcome you, our guests," a woman said. Her hair, long and lustrous, was braided with purple feathers. Her eyes were obviously genemod for augmented vision.

  "Thank you," Gail said. She felt an insane sense of disorientation.

  "Please sit," Larry—Blue Waters—said. "You want to know how the Cheyenne will meet our new enemy."

  "Yes. They ... they were here first, you know. I'm sure that a Cheyenne tribe can recognize that sort of claim." Damn, where was Jake? This was his sort of negotiation.

  Blue Waters said calmly, "They were not here first. Your own scientists say they are no more native to this planet than we are."

  "That is still a disputed point even among our own scientists," Gail said.

  "Listen, Gail. We understand that the aliens have a claim. But so do we, by contract with Mira Corp. Yes, it stipulates that any sentient native life on this subcontinent supersedes our claim, but these are not natives. Still, they are here, and we're prepared to live with them in peace. Their numbers are small, and so are ours. They aren't polluting or desecrating the land. There's game and room enough for all. But if they go to war, we have no choice but to respond."

  "Larry, the foundation of life on Greentrees was supposed to be no violence between any groups. Live and let live. That's written into every contract, every land charter—"

  The woman with braids said angrily, "So do you want us to simply let them slaughter our people? Or should we bomb them out of existence? Maybe you think a laser sweep from orbit would solve your problem."

  "No," said Gail evenly, "that would only compound the problem. But you could negotiate."

  "We intend to," Smith said. "But what we've seen so far isn't encouraging. If they will not negotiate, we will protect ourselves."

  "With spears? I saw some young men actually chipping spears!"

  "With what we can fashion from the land. We will not let ourselves be decimated again. The Cheyenne are a proud people."

  Oh, for God's sake, Gail didn't say aloud. She'd read the personnel records. Larry Smith was one thirty-secondth Cheyenne. The "tribe" included Irish, German, Spanish, Swedish, and French blood, and it was in the majority. One brave was three-quarters Chinese, with features that no seventeenth-century Native American had so much as ever set eyes on.

  She said only, "Nobody wants violence, Lar ... Blue Waters. Yes, this is your land, and Mira Corp won't interfere with you. But the aliens, native or not, have precedence according to our charter."

  He said, "Does that mean you will protect them? By violence against us?"

  It was the real question, of course. Gail didn't have the answer. She said honestly but pointle
ssly, "We don't want violence."

  Blue Waters said, "When you have an answer to my question, come back. Otherwise, please leave our lands."

  "We're here at your request! For Dr. Shipley to help your wounded!"

  "I know that," he said. "And we thank you. It is a temporary situation; we are still learning how to adapt our own healing methods."

  Gail stood to leave. She had accomplished nothing. The woman with braids said scornfully, "Volcano Man."

  "At least keep your comlink for now," Gail told Larry Smith.

  Communication was better than nothing.

  Maybe.

  The skimmers took off together, in a confusion of people and objects milling around in the dark. George carried a Fur corpse wrapped in plastic, aided by an unwilling Lieutenant Halberg. Gail saw Jake gingerly holding a plastic bag. Lucy carried three recorders—to whom did the others belong?

  "Jake, where the hell were you? I talked to Larry, and he said the tribe will retaliate against these Furs if there's another attack. He asked what we will do. What will we do?"

  "We need to talk about it."

  "We certainly do. Where were you? And what's in that bag?"

  "The head of a Fur child," he said.

  "What?"

  "The child was killed by one of those predators sort of like lions. George is going to run a brain scan, or something."

  "Killed? You mean, here?"

  "No. At the first alien village. Gail, we'll talk back at Mira City. I'm riding in the other skimmer." He hurried off, setting down his plastic bag to help Lucy load what looked like several buckets of dirt into the larger skimmer.

  Gail climbed wearily into the smaller skimmer. Lieutenant Wortz, an oasis of stolid calm, sat at the pilot console.

  "Lieutenant, the other skimmer is taking off now. We're waiting for Dr. Shipley to finish his doctoring. Two Cheyenne will escort him here."

  "Yes," Wortz said neutrally.

  Gail put her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. She was glad not to be riding in the other skimmer, with an alien corpse and an alien severed head, plus several spears tipped with Fur tissue samples. And dirt. What did Lucy want with all that soil? Probably checking it for evolutionary artifacts, after which she would again insist that the Furs came from somewhere else.

  From where? And how? They hadn't ridden here on brooms like some folkloric witches. Lucy must be wrong. It was another unstable delusion, like the one Lucy had had on the Ariel, when she'd tried to annihilate a nonexistent alien ship.

  Something tugged at the back of Gail's mind, something connected with Lucy's breakdown ... she had it. Lieutenant Halberg had reported on a computer glitch, an object in the astronomical data supposedly moving at ninety-eight percent of c. Nothing like that had ever been detected again, and eventually everyone except Lieutenant Halberg accepted that it was a bug in the program due to cosmic bombardment.

  "Lieutenant Wortz—" Gail began. And then, "Never mind." Gretchen Wortz probably wouldn't know any more than Gail about astronomical data. And if she did, the aloof soldier wouldn't tell her anyway.

  Despite herself, Gail slept. When she woke, they were already in the air. Shipley sat beside her.

  "Doctor, what's 'Volcano Man'?"

  It seemed to take him a long time to focus. He must be exhausted. "What's what?"

  " 'Volcano Man.' Two different Cheyenne referred to that, or called me that. What is it, do you know?"

  "It's an old American Indian legend, I think. The Volcano Man came sputtering up from underground and started despoiling everything, digging mines and shitting in lakes and killing bison and destroying forests. It came to be associated with Western civilization wrecking the wilderness the Native Americans depended on to survive. But it also meant a total disregard for the spirits of the land, the life force that flows through all things and makes them valuable as more than themselves. The life force that sees the world as sacred and precious."

  Gail was silent.

  "Not a bad viewpoint," Shipley said, and now Gail heard the quaver in his voice. More than just exhaustion.

  "Doctor, where's Nan?"

  He didn't answer.

  "She went in the other skimmer, right? It was very confusing there at the loading..."

  "She didn't go in the other skimmer. She stayed behind. To learn what she can, she said."

  "From the Cheyenne?"

  "No," he said, pain etching his tired face. "From the Furs trying to kill them."

  9

  It was nothing short of amazing, Jake thought, how individuals persisted in elevating the events of their personal lives over the world-altering events of history. People could ache with despair through peace, prosperity, progress. They could find happiness in the middle of war, chaos, uncertainly.

  Jake was happy.

  Lying in bed beside a sleeping Lucy, her thin leg flung over his and her face burrowed childishly in the pillow, he reflected on this astonishing happiness. Certainly it didn't come from any inner calm or sustained idealism. He didn't have, for example, Shipley's largeness of vision, which was funny when you considered that it was Jake's vision that had gotten the entire Mira expedition to Greentrees. But that was because, at that time in his life, his own circumscribed vision happen to focus on founding an interstellar colony. And that focus came from one choice made fifteen years earlier.

  An entire life, he reflected, lying on his back and gazing up at the green ceiling of his inflatable, could be shaped by a single choice. But even if his life hadn't been, even if that night in Mrs. Dalton's library had happened differently, Jake would still differ profoundly from Shipley. They simply began from different assumptions. Shipley believed in group decision, graced and guided by the Light. He believed that consensus of many humble minds, no matter how long it took to achieve, would always lead to the best course of action.

  Jake's assumption was different. If you wanted something to happen, you had to make it happen. You alone, because no one else was ever going to do it for you. All you had was yourself.

  Jake had made happen this sweetness with Lucy. She had been fearful and anxious. But he had brought to bear every persuasive technique he'd ever learned, glad that this time he could use them not out of manipulation but desire. And belief that this would be good for both of them.

  And it was.

  However, Jake thought, lying with his hands locked behind his head and the sweet morning air drifting into the inflatable, the sweet things in life were sweet only if you haven't had to pay too dearly for them. Jake was not going to pay too much for this idyll with Lucy. He was not going to tell her, ever, about Mrs. Dalton. Lucy was not, he'd come to realize, the sort of woman who would accept evil. If she were, he wouldn't have wanted her. She wouldn't be the idealistic person she was.

  His wrister vibrated. Gently he shook Lucy's shoulder. "Time to get up, Lucy. Breakfast meeting in half an hour."

  She made an inarticulate noise and burrowed deeper into the pillow.

  "Reports from the bio groups today."

  Instantly she sat up, blinking. "Oh! Yes!"

  He grinned. She looked delectable, sitting on her knees with her light, fair hair tumbling around her head, her pink nipples staring at him like blind, knowing eyes. He reached for her.

  "Jake, no, we don't have time!"

  "We do if we skip bathing. Which would you rather do—sit at the meeting clean or sit at the meeting satisfied?"

  She laughed, and her eyes darkened in the way, he had come to know, that meant desire. She laughed again, a lower pitch, throaty and inviting.

  The second Jake and Lucy walked into the inflatable, Jake knew this was not going to be just another routine meeting. In addition to the Board, the full contingent of senior scientists was present: Maggie Striker, Roy Callipare, Robert Takai, Ingrid and Todd, Thekla Barrington.

  Gail whispered, "What kept you?" Jake didn't answer.

  George Fox looked somewhere between exhausted and elated. "I did as complete a tissue ana
lysis as I had time for. You can all access my report, if you want to, but I warn you that it's pretty technical. Here are the highlights."

  The biologist paused. At another time the pause would have seemed just George's natural theatrical exuberance, but not this time. George Fox, it seemed to Jake, was genuinely dazed by whatever he'd found. Around the foamcast table everyone tensed.

  "First," George said, "the Furs' biological systems are identical. Both groups, the stupid passive ones and the aggressive ones, have exactly the same systems chemistry. They're the same species."

  Ingrid said, "We can confirm that at the DNA level. But there has been some minor genetic drift, which suggests that the two groups have had no contact with each other for maybe a thousand years. Given their distance apart and level of technology, that fits."

  George nodded. "Second, the bodily systems, respiratory and circulatory and muscular—hell, people, you must keep in mind that I don't really know how all those systems work. This is DNA-based and warm-blooded, but it's the result of a totally different evolutionary path from warm-blooded life on Earth. I'm making educated guesses here."

  "We understand that," Gail said. As the person least interested in the aliens, she had the most patience with qualifiers.

  George ran a hand through his thinning and uncombed hair. "Anyway, the bodily systems are not only radically different from ours, they're radically different from any other mammal-like creature I've seen on Greentrees. Lucy was right. The Furs, all of them, are as alien to this planet as we are."

  Ingrid said, "Again, the genetics agree. There are the similarities we've learned to expect anywhere in the galaxy, given that panspermia seeded DNA everywhere. But there aren't enough genetic similarities between Furs and anything else to suggest co-evolution."

  "Third," George said, and from his tone Jake knew that this was the big one, "I ran MOSS scans on the brain of the dead child from the passive Furs, and on the brain of the Fur killed by the Cheyenne. The—"

  Jake said, "What's a MOSS scan, again?"

  "Multi-layer Organ Structure Scan. It maps organs right down at the cellular level. The two Fur brains are identical, within the parameters you'd expect for individual differences. With one exception. A small section of the passive Furs' brain is inert. Covered with scarring. My guess is that it doesn't function."