This Alien Shore (13 page)

“Ah, my sweet.” He shakes his head slowly, tenderly. “There is no going home anymore, Jamie. I'm sorry
.
”

We're not going to go away, Jamisia....

We've got to function as a team, it's the only way to stay ahead of Shido....

We won't fucking lay down and die for you!

END PROGRAM

D
RESSED IN her ritual finery,
simba
-kaja clearly outlined on her face, her Ladyship Alya Cairo, Guildmistress Prima of the Ainniq Nodes, prepared to meet her guests.

That they were coming in person to the Guildhall on Tiananmen Station to meet with her, rather than being represented by holocasts, spoke volumes for the delicacy of the matter at hand. These guildmasters were accustomed to dealing with sensitive issues, and were unlikely to forget just how vulnerable a holocast program was during its transmission. But that wasn't the only reason she wanted them here in person. The truth was, she liked the power of direct confrontation. She liked the almost palpable sense of tension she got when she met the eyes of an inferior, or a rival ... you never got that on vidscreen or in holo, no matter how good the governing programs were. You never got that psychic sense of what your people were thinking, when they were growing restless, when they began to wonder if perhaps the kaja they had chosen for the meeting was not the best choice they could have made. She liked it because it gave her a sense of power ... and in fact it might be said that the Mistress Prima of the Ainniq Guild, who controlled all transportation between the outworlds and therefore all commerce, was in fact the most powerful human in the galaxy. If not the most powerful human who had ever existed.

She liked it best that way.

The chamber she had chosen was sleek and spartan, as were most meeting spaces in the Guildhall. It wasn't so much an aesthetic choice as one born of necessity; so many of her people had visual handicaps or other sensory distortions that it was wise to keep the surroundings simple, efficient, and uncluttered. A slate-gray table with twelve monitors for guests. A set of matching chairs. Everything edged distinctly in contrasting shades: white on black, charcoal on pearl gray, mist on slate. Despite the fact that there were simple programs to compensate for lack of sensitivity to borders, she knew that some of her people disdained to use such artificial aids, and would have difficulty distinguishing items from their background without aesthetic assistance. The chairs were perfectly spaced, of course, and the monitors all adjusted to the same, precisely chosen angle. Any other arrangement would have resulted in a waste of time and energy for one of her most valued officers.

All was ready.

Of her five senior Guildmasters, only four would be coming. She regretted that, but there was no helping the matter. Luis Hsing was still in transit from Guera proper, not due to arrive in outspace for another E-month. She hadn't wanted to wait. His report was in, which was what mattered. The Gueran professor was with him, and was already at work on their problem. The parameters of his involvement had yet to be explored.

I only hope you're right,
she thought darkly. As if the man who had recommended that Masada be hired was standing there, as if she were addressing him directly.
I only hope that hiring this man doesn't cause more problems than it solves.

It angered her that she would have to wait another month to talk to Hsing in person. It frustrated her, that the nature of human demographics made such travel delays commonplace. Like most members of the Guild she considered the ainniq system to be the natural hub of the universe, and couldn't understand the obstinate refusal of so many humans to accept that fact. If
she
had been Prima in the early days of the second settlement, she would have seen to it that the homeworlds of humankind were abandoned, their dirt and meteorological hazards traded for the modem efficiency of space stations and all the benefits that came with them. That such worlds had been encouraged to endure, rather than simply being evacuated, never ceased to amaze her. Couldn't they see that if all humans lived within an arm's reach of the ainniq system, every one of them—Variant and otherwise— would be capable of getting to any point in human space within a few days at most? Wasn't that worth striving for? Wasn't it worth a little sacrifice?

But the planetborn didn't feel that way. They clung to their homelands and their history, and weren't likely to give up either for mere transportational convenience. Even Guera was still heavily populated, despite a year-long round trip ticket to the nearest ainniq, so her race could hardly preach to others about convenience. Why, this professor they had hired had never even
been
to an ainniq, had never set foot upon a single outworld ... incredible, she thought. Why would anyone who had the whole universe at his fingertips choose to live on such a tiny island? And an educated man, at that? It was incomprehensible to her.

“Your Ladyship?”

Startled, she looked up to see that Devlin Gaza had entered while her thoughts were elsewhere. He vouchsafed her a small smile to go with the title, his expression more intimate than his words. At times like this he preferred to address her in a formal manner, and in truth she found it most helpful at formal meetings. But it was hard to forget that when the guests were gone and the conference room abandoned, their relationship was something else entirely.

Ten years now. No other relationship she'd ever attempted had lasted so long. But then, no other lover of hers had been like Devlin. In part it was because there was no sense of competition between them, as there had been with other men, no sense of his resenting her authority. Devlin Gaza had power of his own, as the head of the Guild's programming development team, and though nominally he answered to her authority, in practice he was all but independent. She trusted him to do his work and do it well, and rarely interfered with his chosen protocol. Perhaps that was what made a relationship possible. Perhaps that was why they had lasted ten years now, while all her other relationships had fallen apart within months.

Or perhaps she simply hadn't burned him out yet. Or driven him away. Or—what had her third lover said?—made it clear that all things came second to her work, including the people who cared about her.

“The
Exeter
just pulled into dock,” he told her. No nonsense, all business, that was his way on occasions like this. She was grateful for it. He wore the aggressive
raj
today, combined with his usual
nantana-
kaja:
I am capable of dealing in subtleties, but have no time for bullshit.
“Varsav should be on it. That makes four.”

“Good. Karmen knows to bring him here as soon as he arrives.”

Soon they would all be here. Soon.

Devlin nodded, vouchsafing her a tight smile as he took in the arrangement of the chairs, the monitors, and probably every speck of dust in the place. Apparently her efforts to get it all right passed muster, for he made no move to fix anything, but simply took his place behind one of the twelve chairs, there to await the other guests. She knew that if she had placed a pile of hardcopy reports on the table he would probably straighten that pile, aligning its edges until they were perfectly complimentary to the periphery of the table. Or perhaps he would distribute them in advance, laying each one perfectly beside its monitor, parallel to the table's edge, flawlessly aligned to the arm of the attending chair. At times she wondered what alien formula was churning in his brain, assessing the environment in terms she would never think to apply. He was her lover, but he was also Gueran, which meant that she never could really understand him. Was it different on Earth, where all minds conformed to a single standard? She suspected not. She suspected that no matter how similar two people might become, there was always a void which could never totally be breached. Guera's voids were dark and dramatic, but Earth had her own version. What was it a philosopher had once said?
Each human is, within himself, an alien landscape to all others.

The door chimed softly, a warning. She stiffened, smoothing her black robes with practiced efficiency. Now was the time for the
simba
to take control, the kaja whose message was both simple and absolute:
acknowledge my dominance and all will go smoothly.
The animal from which the kaja took its name sent others to hunt for its food, then ate first, leaving the hunters its scraps. It killed such cubs as might carry the genes of a competitor, without regret and without delay. It assembled about itself a court of mates and offspring who understood the rights of the master and acquiesced to them ... and it would respond instantly to another of its kind who violated its territory. She smiled a tight smile as she reflected upon that last point. It had been years since anyone had dared to wear the
simba
in her presence, and that had indeed been a rival ... not a man she worried about now. Not a man that
anybody
worried about now.

The door slid open, and the first of her guildmasters entered. Ian Kent—tall, well-mannered, handsome—bowed deeply as he saw her. “Prima.” As always she was struck by the utter tranquillity of his presence, the almost preternatural calm the man seemed to exude. Which was nothing short of amazing, she knew. The man had been an outpilot once, had tasted the ultimate human power ... and had lost it in a docking accident, which had damaged his brain and removed him from the roll of outpilots forever. Was serenity a byproduct of the programs he used to control his deadly Syndrome, now that it had no safe outlet? Or something more personal? Gueran etiquette demanded that she not question it, merely accept. “An honor to be in your presence again.” He wore the natsiq as usual, with little adornment.
I serve the Guild; that is all I want you to know.
Full black robes in outworld style swept the floor as he moved, a traditional costume as old as the ainniq themselves; Guera's children did not flaunt their earthlike bodies in front of the more obviously deformed Variants.