Nancy Kress - Nothing Human

“That smell is gone now,” Sajelle said.

Lillie admitted to herself that she still felt bruised. He’d used her. But bruised wasn’t bone-shaking jealousy and unstoppable pain, and what had that been about, anyway? She’d lost her perspective on things. Well, she had it back, now.

“Let’s go to the garden,” she said abruptly, breaking into Emily’s monologue about Rafe’s theories.

Sajelle blinked. Emily said uncertainly, “Well, if you want to, Lillie.”

“I do.” Better to just get it over with.

Mike was dancing with Sophie in the cafe. Lillie, heart pounding but under control, walked past them to a group sitting by the pond. They welcomed her with exaggerated cries, both wary and sympathetic. Jason winked at her.

The wink looked just right to Lillie. He was saying, Don’t let it get to you, saying it with humor and style. Lillie winked back.

She tried to pretend to be natural, and the more she did, the more natural she actually felt. Also healthy and energetic. She got them all to the basketball court, where Jason, one of the captains, picked her first for his team.

Three nights later, after his persistent and exaggerated gestures that made her laugh, Lillie went with Jason to his room and had sex with him. She felt relief, and desire, and the knowledge that Jason would only be with her a few days before moving on. Sad knowledge, irrelevant knowledge. What mattered was the sex. In fact, it seemed to Lillie she wanted it more with Jason than she had ever with Mike. It was as if she was driven toward Jason, hungry and eager, and couldn’t help herself. But, then, why would she want to?

“Sajelle! Wake up!” Lillie stood by Sajelle’s bed, barefooted, shivering in a room that shouldn’t have been cold. “Wake up! Now!”

Sajelle stirred sleepily beside Alex, opened her eyes, sat up quickly.

“Something’s happening,” Lillie said. “I don’t know what. Please… come.”

Sajelle climbed over Alex and followed Lillie into the corridor. By the time they closed the door behind them, Sajelle was already frowning. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Lillie said helplessly. “I just woke up knowing something’s… wrong.”

Sajelle said slowly, “Yeah. It is.”

Relief washed over Lillie. She wasn’t the only one with this sense of doom. Not just doom, either. Anger, fear, shame, a flood of nasty emotions that made her feel terrible. What was she doing on the ship so long? God, poor Uncle Keith must think she was dead! And then Jason… and before him Mike… how had she acted like such a slut? She, Lillie! She didn’t behave like that! And she’d been here—they’d all been here—how long? What month was it, anyway? Why had they stayed, learning genetics from aliens, while their families below must not even know what happened to them!

“God,” Sajelle said, “those… aliens. What have I been doing here? How long has it been?”

“I don’t know. I lost track.”

“They not even human!”

“Well…” Lillie said, her native fairness asserting itself. But then an image came to her, sharp and horrifying: Pam taking her through the garden wall into the rest of the ship, and flowing toward her a thing, a blob, of living tissue… How had she forgotten that terrible picture? She clutched Sajelle’s arm.

“Don’t you go clinging to me!” Sajelle snapped. Then, “I’m sorry, Lillie. It’s just…”

“I know,” Lillie said. She felt on edge herself, anxious, almost sorry she’d woken Sajelle. “What’s happening?”

“We ourselves again,” Sajelle said grimly.

Yes. But how, and why? And who had Lillie been before? All of a sudden she wanted to cry, or kick something, or find Pam and Pete and demand explanations, reasons.

The door to commons opened and Rafe came through, very pale. “I did it.”

“Did what?” Sajelle snapped. “What your sorry ass doing now?”

“I took out the scent-organism complex.”

The girls stared at him. He said impatiently, “Don’t be stupid, you two! If the lawn machine was organic, then don’t you see that the scent-producing mechanism must be, too? It’s the ‘right way.’ Genetically engineer everything you can, and regard the rest with disdain. Olfactory molecules have been coming at us day and night, incredibly complex molecules, controlling our behavior. Probably acting on the emotional areas of the brain just the way the learning molecules act on the cortex.”

Lillie struggled to take it in. “You mean… Pam and Pete have been controlling our behavior? With engineered molecules? Getting us to…” She couldn’t finish.

“You got it,” Rafe said grimly. “Getting us to like school, and be happy here on ship, and not worry about what we left down below, and fuck like minks.”

“You wrong!” Sajelle yelled. “Nobody controls me!”

“Wanna bet?”

Sajelle swung on him. She connected. Rafe was taller than he had been but still slightly built; he went down, staggering up a moment later with a bloody nose.

“I’m sorry,” Sajelle whispered.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are.” Rafe looked on the verge of tears. “Listen, Sajelle, would you have done that if I hadn’t poisoned the scent organisms? I don’t think so. Face facts for once in your unintellectual life, why don’t you.”

Lillie cried, “How did you do it, Rafe?”

“Not hard. I found the opening in commons—apparently it does our whole area —made some strong acid in the school, and poured it in.”

“We weren’t taught to make any acid.”

He looked disgusted. “Not by Pam and Pete. But unlike you, I knew some chemistry before I arrived here. I had some other priorities than clothes and sports and sex.”

“You and Emily done your share of fucking since you got here,” Sajelle jeered. “Or did you two just talk about chemistry all them nights?”

Lillie said, “We have to go back. To Earth. My Uncle Keith… how long have we been here?”

Rafe said, blood still streaming from his nose, “Seven months and twelve days. It’s April 10.”

April 10! God, how had so much time passed? She hadn’t known, hadn’t even remembered, hadn’t been herself. Who had she been? The things she’d done with Jason and Mike…

Lillie said to Rafe, “They didn’t control us completely, or we’d all have been the same. But we weren’t! Sam was still a bully, and you were still interested in science stuff, and Elizabeth was still religious, and—”

“You’re right,” Rafe said sulkily. “Basic personality remained. Like Sajelle being an idiot. But olfactory molecules controlled our moods, made us happy here no matter what, took away missing people and wanting to go home and sexual inhibitions and any emotional pain.”

Any emotional pain. Her jealousy and betrayal over Mike, and then all at once it vanished. Just like that. And Sajelle saying “What’s that smell?” And the talk with Pam in the garden, Lillie thinking Pam was wonderful, so warm and caring.

Sajelle said, “You crazy, Rafe. Why would Pam and Pete want us fucking like that?”

“I don’t know.” He’d succeeded in stopping the blood flow from his nose. He looked a mess, bloody and dirty and angry.

A door flew open and Rebecca rushed out. “Hey! I woke up and… what is this?”

“Tell them, Rafe,” Sajelle said, and even under her roil of painful emotions Lillie could see that Sajelle was trying to make amends to Rafe, trying to let him shine.

Rafe began his explanation again. In the middle of it Sam and Jessica bolted out of Jessie’s room, and Rafe had to begin a third time. When Julie appeared, Rafe said in disgust, “I’m not going to keep doing this! Wake up everybody and get them into commons so I can tell everybody at once!”