“I couldn’t dream anything like this. It isn’t in me. It isn’t in anybody. They’re so big, and they get smaller as they come closer. Smaller and smaller, like jewels.”
Ena looked at Brennan, expecting him to reply, and saw that he was suiting up. She switched off her mike. “Are you going out there after him?”
“If I have to, yes.”
“I know you could outwrestle him, but can you catch him?”
“I’ll have to.”
She switched her mike back on. “Leif, I’m offering everything I’ve got. I’ll be your slave if you’ll just come back.” She gulped, and wondered whether her mike had picked it up. “I’ll do your details, all of them, and mine, too. We’ll be heroes when we get home, and I’ll give you a bath first, and clean and press your uniform. I’ll shine your boots and polish your brass. You said I was beautiful once, remember? Wouldn’t you like a beautiful slave?”
Brennan muttered, “Did he really?”
“I’ll-sleep with you like you wanted, Leif. You can do whatever you like with me, and I’ll do whatever you tell me to. Please?”
Leif said, “They’re nesting in me, all the beautiful birds. Perching on nerve fibers, sipping from tiny veins, Ena. Fluttering and singing. This is how a tree feels in summer.”
Wearily, Ena switched off her mike. “He doesn’t care about me.”
“He doesn’t care about us,” Brennan told her. “Not now he doesn’t.”
Leif said, “The wind murmurs in my branches, and the birds nest there.” He sounded rapturous. Ena’s screen showed a silver starfish, arms wide, legs spread, face invisible behind the glare of sunlight on his visor. Slowly, the starfish revolved, rolling like a wheel.
She heard the airlock open. “You’re going after him?”
Brennen stepped into the airlock. “Wish me luck.”
“I do,” she said. The airlock closed, and she added, “I wish you both luck. I hope you don’t kill each other.”
Still later: “Most of all I wish me luck.”
Was there nothing she could do but sit and watch? She unsnapped her belt, floated up, and pushed off.
Walt should have looked just as she remembered him from last time-so quickly frozen that no big crystals had formed, eyes shut, and very, very dead.
He did not. Dead, yes, but still there. So quickly frozen, she thought, that his soul had not had time to leave his body. Brennan thought it might be possible to reanimate him back on earth, and Brennan might be right.
Walt’s eyes were not completely shut. Surely they had been before?
Surely. But Walt was peeking out like one who feigns sleep.
“I may sleep with Leif if Brennan brings him back. I’ll have to sleep with Brennan. You’re dead, Walt.” Ena paused. “You’re dead for now, anyway. I won’t be cheating on you.”
From behind a plastic shield as clear as air, Walt watched her in silence.
“You understand, don’t you?” She began to close the lid. “Besides, I-we’re not all that different from you, we women.”
She returned to the bridge, floating along ovoid black corridors that should have echoed but did not. It had been wrong to silence them, she thought. The sound absorption was too good, it worked too well. Ghosts whispered in the black corridors now, Alaia’s ghost and Barbara’s.
Walt’s ghost.
On her screen, Brennan had a line around Leif’s waist and was playing it out behind him as he returned to the ship. Brightly lit by rising Beta Andromedae, the slack orange line traced fantastic loops and whorls against the still-dark planet they orbited. Ena switched on her mike. “Did he give you any trouble, Brennan?”
“Not a bit.”
Changing viewpoints, she watched Brennan enter the airlock, turn, and begin hauling Leif in. No resistance, but…She inserted a sedative cap in the injector. Leif, she told herself, was not particularly strong. And pushed aside the knowledge that all psychotics were.
Inside, he removed his helmet without assistance. His expression was rapt, his eyes elsewhere. The neck was one of the best places.
Leif relaxed, swaying, and Brennan said, “That was probably a good idea.”
“It can’t hurt.” Ena was opening Leif’s suit.
“I’m full of birds,” Leif told her.
“I see.”
“They’re nesting in me. Have I mentioned that?”
Absently, she nodded.
“We are their trees. That’s why there are no trees down there. We trees have just arrived.” Leif paused. “I would like to sit down.”
“No reason not to,” Brennan told him. “Step out of the boots and I’ll put you in a chair.”
When Leif did not move, Brennan lifted him out, the magnetic boot soles holding them to the deck. When Brennan had Leif in his console seat, Ena belted him in.
The first jump covered four thousandths of one light-year; recharging for the next would take thirty-six hours.
“Are we going home?” Leif asked. He sounded sleepy, and had not touched the buckle that held him in his seat.
Brennan said, “Right.” He was refolding Leif’s suit.
“You’ll have to walk in the spinner,” Ena told Leif, “just like Brennan and me. Just like you did on the trip out. Can you do it?”
Leif seemed not to have heard her.
“Two hours a day,” Brennan said. “If you don’t, your legs will break when we get home.”
Ena was inspired. “Your limbs, Leif. That’s your arms and your legs. You know what happens when limbs break.”
Leif stared at her. “The nests fall down.”
“Exactly!”
“I’m going into the spinner now.” Leif released his buckle. “Three hours. Three hours every day for me. I won’t forget.”
When Leif had gone, Brennan chuckled, wrapped Ena in his arms, and kissed her. When they parted, he whispered, “You were always the smartest woman on board.”
They were recharging for the fourth jump when Ena heard the first bird, its clear trills carried through the ventilation system. A twenty-minute search found it in Specimen Storage number 3, where it had nested among her neatly labeled sacks of rocks.
It was somewhat larger than a crow, and was not (she decided) exactly as a bird should be. That sinuous neck, armored in diamond scales, might have belonged to a snake; the sides of its long, curved beak were toothed like the blades of saws. It spread its wings when she approached, threatening her with retractile claws that sprouted from their forward edges.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Ena said softly. “Really, I don’t. You’re very, very valuable to all three of us. You’re an alien life-form, you see.” It was difficult to remain calm.
The bird rattled its feathers-a warning buzz, loud and abrupt.
She kicked off from a specimen bag, backing away. “I’m going to bring you something to eat. I don’t know what you’ll like, so I’ll try several things.” Could it eat their food?
Brennan was checking the recharge readings. “Pile’s running good,” he told her. “Next jump should be right on schedule.”
“Leif’s birds are real.” She had drifted over to her console.
“Are you kidding me?”
Seeing his skepticism, she nodded. “Sure. But don’t you hear that noise? Listen. I think it’s coming through the vents.”
After a moment he left his seat and kicked off, stopping aft vent. Ena smiled to herself.
“That’s a bearing getting ready to fail. Probably one of the fans. I’ll see to it.”
As he shot out into the corridor, she called, “Good luck!”
She was checking the pile herself when Leif wandered in. “Do you need me?”
“Not really.” She smiled. “The best thing you could do right now is to shower and put on a clean uniform. Will you do that? For me?”
Leif nodded.
“Thank you! I really appreciate it. Put the one you’re wearing in the laundry, and I’ll see to it. Don’t forget to empty the pockets.”