Robert Sawyer: Foreigner

She couldn’t hear anything except the thundering of her heart, the crackling of flames, and the clicking of her toeclaws against the floor. Turning, she confronted her own giant shadow, a shuddering silhouette on the far wall. Next to it was an open archway. Novato stepped through, the heat now on her back and tail, the normal coolness of the ship’s interior a welcome sensation on her muzzle. Her shadow moved with her, dancing along the wall like a living tapestry.

Left or right?

Why, right, of course.

No—left.

Left, yes, that was correct. Left.

She turned and took two steps forward. Her shadow disappeared as everything faded to uniform blackness.

Novato placed her left hand on the wall. Her claws were still extended. She tried to retract them but they would not return to their sheaths. So be it. She let the fluted cones lightly scrape along the wall as she began down the corridor. The sound of the spluttering flames gradually disappeared.

And then, a bend in the corridor.

Should there be a bend here?

Yes. Surely yes , she thought. A bend to the right here, one to the left not much farther after that. Be calm!

Total, absolute darkness now. No trace of light from the fire. She removed her hand from the wall and held it in front of her face. Completely invisible. She closed her inner and outer eyelids. No difference. Utter, complete, soul-devouring blackness.

Novato walked slowly, afraid of losing her footing on the too-smooth, slightly angled floor.

The ship groaned.

She stopped dead, held her breath.

Again: a moaning sound, coming from all around her.

She touched her hunter’s tattoo and then her left shoulder, an ancient gesture of obeisance to God.

Once more: a low, sustained, mournful sound.

The ship… alive? Alive, after all this time?

Impossible. It had been buried millions of kilodays ago. Novato hadn’t realized her hands were shaking until she tried to bring them together.

Groaning, rumbling—like, like digestion . As though she’d been swallowed alive…

But then she slapped her tail loudly against the floor.

Be rational , she thought. Rational.

She’d heard this sound before, but never so clearly. Most of the ship was buried in a cliff. As the day wore on, the rocks of the cliff’s face heated and expanded. Their shifting against the unyielding hull caused sounds like these. She’d never been so close to the outer hull when the shifting had occurred, but that must be it. It must be.

She touched her teeth together and shook her head. If Afsan could only see me now—

Afsan, so rational, so logical. Why, he’d click his teeth until all the loose ones had been knocked out if he saw Novato being so foolish…

But then it hit her. If Afsan could see me now? Afsan sees nothing, nothing at all.

Novato began walking again, her claws still unsheathed, although she was certain—certain!—that should she now command them to, they would slip back into her fingers, out of view.

Out of view.

She thought again of Afsan. Was this what it was like to be blind? Did Afsan feel the kind of fear she felt now, unsure of every step, unaware of what might be lurking only a pace away? How could one get used to this? Was he used to it? Even now, even after all this time?

He had never seen their children, never seen the vast spaceship Novato was now within, never seen the statue erected in his honor in Capital City.

And never, except that one wonderful time when he had come to Pack Gelbo all those kilodays ago, had he seen Novato.

Of course he must be used to the darkness. Of course.

She continued through the void, the image of Afsan giving her strength. She felt, in a strange way, as though he, with all his experience in navigating in darkness, walked beside her.

Her footfalls echoed. The ship moaned again as its rocky tomb heated further.

Suddenly her left hand was touching nothing but air. The corridor had opened into another corridor, running perpendicular to it. Novato exhaled noisily. Her teams had marked every intersection with a circle of paint on the wall, color-coding the various paths through the ship’s interior. Of course, she couldn’t see the colors—or anything else—but surely she could find the circle. She felt at shoulder-height. Nothing but smooth, uninterrupted wall, until—yes, here it was. A roughening of the wall surface, a round area of a different texture. Dried paint.

Novato scraped the paint with her claws, catching tiny flakes of pigment on their tips. She brought her fingers to her nostrils and inhaled deeply.

A scent, faint but unmistakable: sulfur. Yellow pigment. Yellow marked the corridor designated major-axis 2. She stopped, picturing the layout of the ship. Yes, major-axis 2… that made sense. She had been going the wrong way, but she knew how to get out from here, although it would require more time. She would take the right-hand path here, and in what—a hundred kilopaces?—she’d come to another intersection. Another right and then a left and eventually she’d be back at the strange double-doored room that led outside.

She paused for a moment, relaxing. Her claws slipped back into their sheaths. The panic of moments before was forgotten. She stepped—

What was that?

A flash of light?

Light?

Here, inside the ship?

Madness… unless a firefly or glowgrub had made its way into the interior.

She looked in the direction from which she’d seen the flickering.

Nothing. Of course not. Why, hadn’t Afsan once said he still occasionally saw little flashes of light? The mind hated to be deprived…

There it was again… .

Novato brought the side of her head right up to the wall and stared into the darkness.

The ship was old, inconceivably ancient.

But there it was once more, a flash of greenish-white, gone almost before she’d even noticed it. A line of geometric shapes, flashing in the dark. Incredible.

Novato wanted to mark this spot so she could find it again. She undid the neck chain that helped hold her sash on, then lifted the wide loop of leather over her head and set it on the floor in front of the flashing symbols on the wall. The sash settled with little clinks as its brass and copper ornaments touched the deck.

Alive. After all this time, at least some small part of the ship was alive.

Novato went down the corridor as fast as she dared in the darkness, anxious to get a fresh lamp and return to examine whatever she had found. Finally, she caught sight of a pale rectangle of light along the corridor: the double-doored room. The inner door was wide open; the outer one jammed half-closed, just as it had been ever since her son Toroca had first entered the ship three kilodays ago. Novato shouldered her way through, cool night air pouring in from outside. The fit was getting tighter all the time; eventually the growth that would go on until her death would prevent her from squeezing into the ship.

She stumbled out onto the wooden scaffolding. It was early evening, the sun having just set. Still, after so long in absolute darkness, the five moons visible overhead blazed like wild flames.

Captain Keenir of the Dasheter slowly regained his senses. He pushed himself off the carcass of the bizarre yellow being and staggered back a few paces along the beach, a look of horror on his face.

“What have I done?” he said, leaning on his tail for support, his gravelly voice a half-whimper. “What have I done?” The captain looked down. His arms were covered with drying blood up to the elbows, and his entire muzzle was crusted over with red. He brought his hands to his face and tried to wipe the blood from there. “What have I done?” he said once more.