Robert Reed - Marrow

Walking the avenue, watching aliens and strange humans going about their very strange lives, the Waywards struggled to retain a sense of total control. No, they didn’t come from a backward world. No, they weren’t awed by the endless cosmopolitan landscape that was the Great Ship. In their smiling faces and grim, staring eyes, they showed nothing but a cocky toughness common to police officers anywhere. And elaborate sensors automatically probed and prodded the strange bodies around them, teasing out their secrets, proving that there was nothing here to be feared. And yet.

Behind the eyes was a nervousness, childlike and almost endearing.

As they approached the cafe, Washen studied them with nothing but her own eyes and experience. Obviously, the five Waywards had spent their short lives making ready for today. For this particular walk. They’d always known that they would board the Great Ship, reclaiming it for the Builders. They had studied their roles and practiced a thousand scenarios to exhaustion—scenarios designed by Miocene, no doubt—and like children anywhere, they couldn’t help but accept this day with a rigorous lack of imagination.

Of course they were here. Of course they ruled the ship! After all, this moment had been promised to them by Till and the dead Builders. From the moment they were born, and in every spoken word…!

But despite simulations and every carefully entombed lesson, the reality of this place was beginning to slam down on their inexperienced heads: a whiff-Kon saluted them with its tail, and one young man jerked his hand, ready to fend off an imagined blow. A golden rilly bird landed on one of their armored shoulders, wanting to sing for food and getting nothing but a quick shove for its trouble. Then a human child, perhaps knowing a little something about Waywards, said, “For you,” He was sitting at a nearby table, and he said, “A gift, sir.’Then he handed up a wide, greenish-brown beetle. No, it was a cockroach. Something that the child had caught under the cafe tables, probably.

The Wayward accepted the gift and pointed sensors at its body and kicking legs. Then he glanced at his companions, and receiving no suggestions, he did what must have seemed like the polite thing.

He pushed the roach into his mouth, and chewed.

What was a quiet avenue became deathly silent. Passengers and a few off-duty crew members held their breath until the Wayward swallowed. By then, he sensed that he had guessed wrong, and for a moment, he was lost. What should he do now? But then some teacher’s sage advice came back to him, and he said, “What a wonderful flavor.” He said it with a humble charm. Then he laughed, working desperately to expose his embarrassment to his very tense audience.

A palpable relief came from everywhere at once.

Wrapped inside that tiny drama was a lesson. Washen glanced at Pamir, and he nodded, seeing it for himself.

The old Master and her dusty old captains weren’t missed. The mutiny had been quick and virtually bloodless, and the mutineers—whatever their motives—had a simple charm, not to mention other qualities that tourists always appreciated:

These Waywards were a different sort of people, novel and new, and in the most unexpected ways, they could be entertaining.

The patrol continued with its sweep, and after another few moments, they arrived at Washen’s table, a first little glance giving them no reason to linger. But the trailing officer—a strong chocolate-colored woman—seemed to notice something about the three of them, and she hesitated. She stared at Washen, and too late, Washen realized that she had been staring at one of the youngish men, his quick face and smoky gray eyes reminding her of Diu. One of Diu’s children, perhaps.

The woman said, “Please, if you would. Your idenitities, please.”

Her fellow officers paused and looked over their shoulders, waiting with a professional impatience.

Washen, then Pamir, offered their new names and flecks of other people’s skin. The harum-scarum obeyed last, its attitude perfectly in keeping with its nature—an angry tangle of sounds diluted in the translation:

“I resent you, but you have the power.”

The woman seemed to understand the species. “I have the power,” she agreed, “but I admire you just the same.” Then their names were checked against the ship’s extensive rosters, and when everything appeared as it should, she told the three of them, “Thank you for your gracious cooperation.”

“You’re welcome,” Pamir replied, for everyone.

The Wayward seemed ready to leave, then had second thoughts. Or she pretended second thoughts, taking a half-step before pausing, a glance at Washen preceding the careful question, “Why don’t you approve of us?”

“Is that what you think?” asked Washen.

“Yes.” There was something of Aasleen in the face and manners. Perhaps it meant nothing, but the woman seemed less like a Wayward than the others. She said, “Ignorance,” with a delicate anger. Then shaking her head as if disappointed, she added, “You consider yourself a person of rational intelligence. As I understand your Rationalist uniform. But I don’t believe you have any understanding of me. Is that true?”

Washen said, “Probably somewhat true, yes.”

The officer was scanning her—a deep, thorough scan meant to find any abnormalities, any excuse for a deeper interrogation. Conversation was an excuse to stand too close and stare.

“About this world of yours,” Washen began.’This Marrow place—”

“Yes?”

“It seems very mysterious. And unlikely, I think.”

These weren’t points easily deflected. The woman shrugged her shoulders, and with a forced amiability quoted a Rationalist maxim. “ ‘Good questions asked well dispel every mystery.’ ”

“Where were you born?”

“Hazz City,” the woman replied.

“When?”

“Five hundred and five years ago.”

Washen nodded, wondering if she had ever met this woman. “Hazz City… is that a Wayward place…?”

“Yes.”

“Always?”

The woman nearly took the bait. Then she hesitated, and with a delicate accuracy, she told everyone in the cafe, “Marrow isn’t a large world. And as long as humans have lived there, in one flavor or another, everything on it has been Wayward.”

Washen sat motionless, and silent.

Their interrogator turned to Pamir, saying, “Please, sir. Ask a good question.”

The false face grinned, and after a half-moment, he wondered aloud, “When can I go down and see this world of yours?”

She was scanning Pamir, and her companions formed a half-circle around the table, their sonics and infrareds probbing from different vantage points.The man with Diu’s eyes laughed gently, then said, “You can visit there now, if you want.”

As a prisoner, he meant.

The woman disapproved. She said it with a hard glance, then calmly and smoothly explained to Pamir, “In the near future, there will be tours. Of course. It’s a very lovely world, and I’m sure it will be a popular destination.”

Some of the passengers nodded agreeably, probably eager for the day.

Then the harum-scarum belched with a solid thud, and drawing everyone’s attention, he promised, “I have a better question than theirs.”

“By all means,” said the woman.

“May I join the Waywards?”

That brought a nervous little silence. Then the woman smiled with a genuine serenity, and she gave the honest answer.

“I don’t know,” she told the alien. “But when I find myself in Till’s company again, I will certainly ask—”

She was interrupted by a sudden motion.

Abrupt, and small. But the motion was noticed. Patrons at other tables looked down in astonishment, watching as the faces of their drinks rippled, as the ceiling and walls and rigid stone floor trembled.