Fiction River: Moonscapes, page 22
A table filled the room. Around the table, three Eaufasse chairs, which looked a bit like cones that had risen out of the ground. On the far side of the table, near the boy, were two regular human chairs. They seemed shiny, new, and out of place.
The boy kept looking at them as if he didn’t know what to make of them.
The first Eaufasse stood next to the window. Go. Private, the Eaufasse sent through the joint alien-marshal link. No watch.
She glanced at Okani. He looked back at her, and raised his eyebrows. She should have asked him to check on what was being said, but she found that she was reluctant to do so.
You in, the Eaufasse sent to Gomez. You.
As the Eaufasse voice spoke through the joint alien-marshal link, the first Eaufasse nodded to her.
“Are they speaking to you?” Okani asked.
She didn’t answer that directly. “I’m going in alone.”
I wouldn’t advise that, Washington sent through their private links. Let me go with you.
The boy has asked for protection from humans, she sent. One human’s going to be hard for him. Two or three will be even harder.
I don’t like this, Washington sent.
He didn’t have to like it. No one did.
You two stay with the Eaufasse, she sent. I’ll be fine.
Then she sent to the Eaufasse through the joint link. I’m ready. I’ll talk to the boy alone.
A door opened. She hadn’t even seen the outline of the door in the wall. That door opening made her rethink her assumptions about the rectangles.
The boy looked up. When he saw that she was human, he backed away, hitting the wall behind him.
He started beeping in Fasse.
“He’s saying he didn’t want to see any humans,” Okani said softly. “He’s saying he asked for protection.”
She figured as much. She didn’t answer Okani. Instead, she stepped all the way into the room. The door closed behind her, and as it did, her external links shut off.
Great. She should have expected that, but she hadn’t.
The silence inside her head without her external links always seemed to echo. She hated that. But it did make her concentrate.
“Do you speak Standard?” she asked the boy in that language.
He was as tall as she was, but very thin. His blue eyes had shadows beneath them. She could see the veins in his pale skin, except where his cheeks had reddened. His lower lip trembled.
He was clearly terrified.
She held up her hands, revealing her palms to him, in what she always thought of as a non-threatening gesture. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk. Do you speak Standard?”
“Get out, get out, get out!” the boy said.
“So you do speak Standard,” she said, letting her hands drop. “That’s a good place to start.”
“I can’t talk to you. Please. I want the Eaufasse. Please! Getoutgetoutgetout! Please! Leave me alone!”
His terror made her heart rate increase. She’d never quite seen anything like it.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said again.
“You lie!” he screamed that last word.
“No,” she said. “I don’t. I’m with the FSS. The Eaufasse called me here. I’m just going to talk to you.”
“They…called you?” He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall, as if his last hope was gone.
She felt sorry for him. But she had to keep that emotion in check. She had misrepresented her presence just enough; the Eaufasse hadn’t called her for him, although she let him think that.
Still, the idea that they might have betrayed him seemed to devastate him.
“I’m not part of the enclave,” she said. “I don’t even know what it is. I’m part of the Earth Alliance. Are you familiar with that?”
His lips were pressed together as if he were holding back a scream.
“The Eaufasse want to join the Alliance. That’s why they called us. They don’t know how to handle human interactions.”
His eyes opened. “There wouldn’t be a human interaction if you weren’t here,” he snapped.
“The Eaufasse saw what happened to your friends outside the enclave,” she said. “They’ve never seen anything like that before. They called us to interpret that.”
His head turned slightly, his eyes still on her. “What happened to my friends?” he repeated, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
She hadn’t thought it through: Maybe he didn’t know.
She took a deep breath. “You four left together,” she said. “Then twelve others came out of the enclave.”
He hadn’t moved. He was watching her so closely that she thought he could see right through her.
“They followed the other three. They never came after you.”
He let out a small breath. “They sent you?”
“The twelve?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “The ones in charge.”
If she hadn’t been paying attention, if she hadn’t been thinking about each word, she could have said the wrong thing. Because she was sent by the ones in charge—the ones in charge of the Eaufasse, the ones in charge of the FSS, the ones in charge of the Earth Alliance, if she wanted to be technical about it.
She wondered if Uzven would have been technical, if its answer to that one question would have ruined this entire interview.
“No,” she said softly. “The ones in charge did not send me.”
The boy continued to stare at her with that awful intensity. He seemed to have no idea about the FSS or the Earth Alliance, and he clearly did not trust her.
“I don’t look like anyone you know, do I?” she asked. The question was a gamble: he was a clone, so she figured his contact with adult humans was limited to a small set of people, some of whom might also be clones. She could be wrong as easily as she could be right.
But interviews were a gamble sometimes, particularly in her profession.
“No,” he said, the word short and reluctant.
“There are a lot of humans in this universe,” she said, and stopped herself from explaining further. She didn’t want the Eaufasse to know that their assumptions about the Earth Alliance were wrong. “The people who run the enclave have broken off from the rest of us. They want nothing to do with us.”
That too could be an untruth. She had no idea. But she suspected this boy didn’t either.
“You say enclave,” he said. “I didn’t leave an enclave. I left the dome.”
“All right,” she said. “I didn’t know what you called that structure. My people call it an enclave because that’s what the Eaufasse call it.”
The fact that he had offered up that detail was a good sign; it meant that in his mind, he was arguing about whether or not she was right.
He didn’t say anything else, clearly thinking about that last interchange. So she kept the conversation going.
“I don’t know what you’re called either,” she said.
“I told the Eaufasse,” he said.
“I don’t speak Fasse,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Then how did they contact you?”
“Through others who speak their language. How did you learn it?”
His head moved slightly, almost as if he considered shaking it and then changed his mind.
“They call me Third of the Second.” His voice shook. “Thirds if they don’t want to say the whole name.”
So Okani’s translation was wrong. “Thirds” not “Third.” That would be easy to mishear.
“And your friends call you that too?” she asked.
His mouth moved, but nothing came out. Then he bit his lower lip, drawing blood. “What happened to the others?”
Her gaze met his. It was time to be honest with him, in more than one way.
“I wasn’t called to see you,” she said. “I didn’t find out about you until several hours after I arrived.”
She hoped he would understand the subtlety. She hoped he would know what she meant.
His eyes narrowed a little. He seemed to have an idea what she was talking about. “What happened?” he asked again.
She rather liked the fact that he wasn’t going to assume. She liked that he needed confirmation.
“The twelve killed the three who left with you,” she said as calmly as she could.
“How?” he asked.
She was surprised by that. She figured he would know they had used their laser rifles.
“They were shot,” she said.
He turned his head to the side, quickly, and closed his eyes, as if denying the news. Then his face crumpled. He slid down the wall, and brought his hands up.
She remained standing for a minute. Then she took one of the nearby human chairs, as much to prevent herself from going to him as to wait for him to calm a little.
He folded his arms on his knees and buried his head. His shoulders shook.
She watched. She’d seen similar reactions before, usually from parents who had lost children or people who had lost lovers. Sometimes it took quite a while for the person to calm down.
She didn’t have quite a while. She was going to have to interrupt him eventually. Just not yet.
After about five minutes, he raised his head slightly, and wiped his face with his sleeve. He didn’t apologize for his reaction like some people had done. He didn’t seem to care what she thought at all.
“You’re going to give me to them now?” he asked, voice trembling.
“To whom?” she asked.
“The enclave.” He used her word, as if it were forbidden.
“Of course not,” she said. “They tried to kill you.”
He bit his lower lip again, but he couldn’t seem to stop it from shaking. He took a deep breath.
“You’ll let me stay with the Eaufasse?”
How to explain to this boy, who didn’t even seem to know what the Earth Alliance was, the politics of the situation? Treaties, agreements, preliminary negotiations, all of that would have an impact on him if he stayed here.
Not to mention the fact that he was probably a clone, the third of the second—whatever that meant—which made him not human. If Okani was right, and the Eaufasse understood that the boy was property, then they might fight for him in a different way.
“You need to clarify some things for me before I can decide what to do,” she said. She had to tread lightly because she didn’t want him to reveal his origins. “Can you explain the twelve coming after you four?”
His expression hardened. “It’s a training exercise.”
“So you were what? Running from them and those who survived got higher marks in the training?”
“I wasn’t supposed to survive,” he said. “They weren’t supposed to go back until we’re all dead.”
She froze. She had asked Rainger to locate the twelve, but he hadn’t gotten back to her on them yet. She had no idea if they had gone back into the enclave.
“What happens if one of you escapes?” she asked.
“We won’t escape,” he said. “They’re supposed to kill us.”
But you all look the same, she wanted to say. How will they know if they missed you? But she didn’t say any of that. She had to be careful, with the Eaufasse involved.
“And if they don’t kill you?” she asked.
“They will die too,” he said flatly.
So much death. What was the point of that?
“Why would they die?” she asked.
“They failed,” he said in that same flat voice.
“Does everyone die if they fail?” she asked. If so, how many clones lived inside that dome?
“On training, yes,” he said. “You can’t have a failure in a unit.”
Again the voice was flat. As if he were telling her something normal but painful. Something he didn’t want to think about because he didn’t want to know exactly how it made him feel.
“Training,” she repeated. “What are you training for?”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “Not for anything. For training.”
“But training is for something. You train for something,” she said.
“We have a job. The best of us will do it.” Then he looked at his hands. “The best of them will do it.”
He filled the word “them” with anger. All of the emotion he had felt but hadn’t expressed so far.
He saw himself as a failure. Or someone as a failure. And it had made him disposable. Useless. Something worse than a failure.
“You can’t do the job? Even though you’ve survived?” she asked, wanting to know what all of this was.
“I cannot survive,” he said. “Don’t you understand? That’s why I need to stay here.”
She let out a small sigh. “You can’t stay here.”
His mouth tightened and his eyes flashed. “So, you’ll send me out to die, just like the others. You lied. You said you didn’t want to hurt me.”
She held up her hands again in that I-don’t-mean-harm position. “I will not send you out to die. I will make sure you stay here until we can get you safely away.”
“Then what?” he asked. “Where will I be if not with the Eaufasse or in the dome?”
“I’ll take you somewhere else in the Alliance,” she said.
“How can you? There is nowhere else.” He spoke with great conviction. This little stretch of Epriccom was his whole universe. He had no idea that any place else existed.
His ignorance took her breath away.
“Oh,” she said, sounding odd, because she couldn’t bring herself to say his name, “there are so many places. You’ll be happily surprised.”
“Surprise is bad,” he said.
She supposed in his world, it would be. “Do you know what a universe is?”
He shook his head.
“A world?”
He shook his head again.
“A city?”
“No.” He sounded sullen.
“What do you call the dome?” she asked.
“The dome,” he said as if she were stupid.
“There are thousands of domes,” she said. “Millions. Tens of millions.”
“I’ve never seen another,” he said in a tone that implied you lie.
“You’ll see many if you come with me,” she said.
He studied her for a moment. “You are female.”
“Yes,” she said, wondering if he’d ever seen a woman in the flesh before.
“You have dark skin,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, resisting the urge to add Like almost everyone else.
“Brown eyes.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Brown hair.”
“Yes,” she said, wondering where he was going with this.
“I’ve only read about creatures like you,” he said. “In the Forbidden Documents.”
He said that like she should know what those documents were. She didn’t. She would have to find out.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” he said.
“No,” she said, trying to sound calm. “You’re supposed to let twelve of your siblings find you and kill you.”
He closed his eyes. A tear ran down his cheek.
“The rules of the dome no longer apply to you,” she said. “Either you die following them or you come with me.”
“I can’t stay with the Eaufasse?” he asked.
“They don’t know what to do with you,” she said.
“Tell them what to do.” He opened his eyes.
She let out a small involuntary chuckle. As if she knew what to do with him.
“I can’t,” she said. “Their choice was to call me and ask me to take you away from here.”
“If I leave, they’ll kill me.”
“The Eaufasse?” she asked.
“The ones you call the twelve,” he said.
His use of language was fascinating.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll protect you.”
She used that word on purpose. Protect.
He heard it. He looked up at her, his eyes wide. “We?”
“I have an entire crew of people,” she said. “Dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned people.”
“Not from the dome?” he asked.
“None of us have even been near your dome,” she said.
“And you can keep me safe?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “We can keep you safe.”
***
In the end, he decided to trust her. She wasn’t sure if he trusted her because she had used the word “protect” or because she looked nothing like the people he was used to or because he was smart enough to realize he had no other choice.
The result was the same. He was coming with her.
Once the boy decided what he would do, she opened the door just a little and asked for Washington. Okani stood near the window, swaying slightly, as if he were worried. The Eaufasse watched. She couldn’t tell what it thought.
For that brief moment the door was open, her links clicked on, filling her mind with familiar static, the sound of possibility. Then Washington entered, carrying the body suit, and she closed the door. The links shut out.
Except Washington’s. She could sense it more than hear it.
First the boy looked at Washington. He stood near the door, the suit draped over his right arm. His weapon was half hidden beneath it. She should have had him remove the weapon.
She had no idea how trustworthy the boy was.
The boy looked from Washington to her. “He’s darker,” the boy said.
He hadn’t learned social skills, or at least, acceptable social skills.
“We’re all different,” she said, wondering as she spoke the words, if the boy knew that.
“I know you’re different,” he snapped. “Everyone’s different. But your skin is different.”
She glanced at Washington, and saw a look of compassion on his broad face. This poor boy had a lot to learn, and much of it, he wouldn’t like. Not as long as he was a clone.
“Yes,” Gomez said. “Our skin is different.”
“Was that a deliberate design choice?” the boy asked. “Was there a purpose for it?”
Her breath caught. It seemed the boy had no end of ways to surprise her.
“We’ll answer the questions as best we can once we leave here,” she said. “Let’s get you out first. This is my deputy, Kyle Washington. He brought you a protective suit.”
