Descending Road - THE HEAT RADIATING FROM HER by Dana W. Paxson

THE HEAT RADIATING FROM HER

1560 4D

Maintaining attitude took all the skill and concentration Dree had. Jeff watched, unable to help in the buffeting chaos of the atmospheric encounter. Dree fed corrections to the ship, thousands of millisecond-long tweaks of fire that shifted them imperceptibly in the flaming cocoon of superheated air. She was flying them in.

The cabin grew very warm. Dree motioned Jeff with one hand to check his suit seals. He dragged through his checks. Gradually the white heat outside the window began to fade to yellow and orange, and red. The heat bathed him; he sweated, longing for a big drink of water. He looked at Dree. Her hands were blistered and scarred, but she stayed at the controls.

“Now for the descent. Hang on.” she said. Slowed to several times the speed of sound, they fell like a fragile egg toward Tarnus. A shudder, and deceleration slammed Jeff and Dree back into their seats. Another shudder a few moments later, another hard deceleration, and they hung in the ship, now feeling an ordinary pull of gravity.

“Parachutes?” Jeff asked.

Dree nodded, massaging her hands. “The last of the Nains. We’ll land safely.”

As Jeff nodded back, the ship hit something so hard that he blacked out.

A dim light outlined Jeff‘s hands in shadow. He hung upside down, his harness holding him tight against the seatback. He looked out the side window. Twilight hung over a flat-looking world of shrubs. A whispering hiss told Jeff that air moved outside the ship. He looked toward the seat where Dree was. She was gone.

“Dree?” Jeff wondered how to remove himself from the seat without crashing face-first onto the cabin ceiling. His harness had one master release. Bracing one arm and letting his legs dangle stiffly, he cut loose, and fell on his forearms, twisting, one of his feet catching the harness and leaving him almost standing on his head. “Shit,” he said. He kicked free, rolled, and scrambled to his hands and knees in the darkness. “Dree!”

“I’m outside,” she called, her voice far off. “Can you come out?”

Jeff‘s body weighed him down. The gravity of this place had to be high. He crawled painfully back through the little ship until he found the open hatch, then worked his way over the edge of the hatch to drop heavily to sandy dirt. The air carried a slightly bitter tang, as if acidic or parched in some way, but a faint unexpected scent of flowers made him sniff intently.

“Over here.” Jeff turned to see Dree sitting a few steps away, her bad leg tucked under her, her face turned toward the last glimmers of the setting star-sun. “Jeff, this place is beautiful.” She raised both hands to the sky.

Jeff looked up. Overhead, the stars burned intensely in a scattering that was new to him. A few long parallel streaks of nacreous cloud, pearl and silver, rode high in the wake of the sunset, seemingly as remote as the stars glowing between them.

“Welcome to Tarnus,” Dree said. “I’ve done my job.”

“Your job?” Jeff crawled over to sit beside her. His chest and belly hurt.

“Getting you here. That was my job. Now I can stop working.” She smiled. “Turn off. Go to sleep. Rest.”

“You’re coming with me,” Jeff said.

“No. I’m done. There’s nothing more for me to do, not here. I was made for space. This is different. My skeleton handles stress from accelerations, but not as well from constant weight.”

“So what are you going to do? Die?”

“That’s right. I’ll just sit here and shut down. You have to go find the people now, if you can.”

“But you’re alive. You said so, you said you weren’t sure whether you were actually alive or not. I’m not leaving you here.” Jeff took Dree‘s hand.

She looked him full in the face, with a gaze that carried both sadness and calm. “Getting you here was my last job. Nothing in me knows what else there might be to do. I’m a creature of the vacuum, made to live and work in space. There’s no way for us to go back to space again. This is the end of my life.”

Jeff exploded. “No! You’re still alive, and that’s all that matters. You’re not some Nain. And you don’t even know that there’s no spaceflight here. They could send you back up, repair you--“

“No, Jeff.” She squeezed his hand. “There’s no spaceflight here at all. I’ve listened to the records kept in the starship of all the radio emissions of the planet. There’s no sign of a launch, no signature, no messaging, that makes any sense.”

“Then there’s no people.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But how would you think there were any people?”

Dree looked away into the deepening darkness and said nothing.

“You’ve heard something, haven’t you?” He moved to face her. “You were lying, weren’t you, about no messaging?”

She still looked away, straight through him.

“You heard something bad. What was it? What are you sending me into?” Jeff brought his face so close to Dree‘s that he could feel the heat radiating from her.

She turned her face aside. “It wasn’t about you. It was about me.”

“What? I’m not going to stop asking until you tell me the truth.”

“There are people here. And there are other intelligences, made by humans. But they have laws here about intelligences, and my type of intelligence is against the laws of this planet. I’m a sentine. When they find out what I am, they will destroy me.” She said this with complete calm, but she watched Jeff‘s face closely.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, utterly sure of his feelings. “You are my friend, my protector, and my lifesaver. I won’t let them do anything to you.”

Dree smiled gently. “You won’t be able to stop them. There are millions of them.”

“Why did you lie to me? You knew all this all along.”

“What would you have done if I’d told you the truth?”

“Just what we’re doing, that’s what.”

“But what if they decide to kill you too? Then everything I’ve done for you will be for nothing.” Dree looked down at her hands. “I had to get you here. When you made me tell you the rest, you made me risk everything I had done. Now you’re making everything much harder for me.” To Jeff‘s surprise, drops glistened as they fell from her eyes into her palms.

He struggled to his knees, came to her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, feeling her silent sobs. “So sentines are people,” he said.

“No!” she answered, looking up at him. “We’re… we can’t be human. We were made.” Wincing from the reentry burns, she rubbed her hands together vigorously, drying off the tears.

“Made so you could cry? Made so you could love? That’s human!”

In a slow, soft voice, Dree chanted,

“They cut up human tissues,

And spawned us from the genes,

And built us into monsters,

And called us all sentines.

“One of my sisters made that up when we were in training in hard vacuum. We laughed. It was true.” Now Dree gazed off into the dark, nothing but starlight and a bit of evening afterglow lighting her face. Her pale hair glistened blue-white under the stars.

Jeff kissed her. Her mouth tasted dry and strange, with odd tinges of cedar and lemon, but it was warm and soft, and he cradled her in his arms. She took the kiss and gave it back, and for a long moment the two of them stayed locked together. “You’re coming with me, monster,” he said.

“Only if you order it,” she responded.

“I so order it.”

“Then we will need to find a way to move me. I’m heavier than you think.”

Jeff staggered to his feet. His knees buckled abruptly, and he sat down hard and fell over. “Maybe we should rest a little, first. Is there any water?”

“I don’t think so. The ship is cleaned out. We’ll have to look for water here in the morning.”

“Then sleep is the next good idea. Do you sleep?”

She laughed. “Yes, I do, when I want to reorganize patterns in my mind. This seems like a good time for that.”

“How about letting me lie next to you while you reorganize?”

An hour passed. Jeff took one last look up at the stars overhead. I’ll figure all this out in the morning.

He wondered how they looked, a man and a… woman, lying side by side in a vast plain, next to a wrecked spacecraft on a planet new to both of them. The idea overwhelmed him; he retreated from it, and let Dree‘s warm body give him comfort as they lay motionless. Tomorrow. There was at last a tomorrow: a sunrise, a daylight, a home. And much else.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	THE HEAT RADIATING FROM HER 1560 4D Maintaining attitude took all the skill and concentration Dree had. Jeff watched, unable to help in the buffeting chaos of the atmospheric encounter. Dree fed corrections to the ship, thousands of millisecond-long tweaks of fire that shifted them imperceptibly in the flaming cocoon of superheated air. She was flying them in. The cabin grew very warm. Dree motioned Jeff with one hand to check his suit seals. He dragged through his checks. Gradually the white heat outside the window began to fade to yellow and orange, and red. The heat bathed him; he sweated, longing for a big drink of water. He looked at Dree. Her hands were blistered and scarred, but she stayed at the controls. “Now for the descent. Hang on.” she said. Slowed to several times the speed of sound, they fell like a fragile egg toward Tarnus. A shudder, and deceleration slammed Jeff and Dree back into their seats. Another shudder a few moments later, another hard deceleration, and they hung in the ship, now feeling an ordinary pull of gravity. “Parachutes?” Jeff asked. Dree nodded, massaging her hands. “The last of the Nains. We’ll land safely.” As Jeff nodded back, the ship hit something so hard that he blacked out. A dim light outlined Jeff‘s hands in shadow. He hung upside down, his harness holding him tight against the seatback. He looked out the side window. Twilight hung over a flat-looking world of shrubs. A whispering hiss told Jeff that air moved outside the ship. He looked toward the seat where Dree was. She was gone. “Dree?” Jeff wondered how to remove himself from the seat without crashing face-first onto the cabin ceiling. His harness had one master release. Bracing one arm and letting his legs dangle stiffly, he cut loose, and fell on his forearms, twisting, one of his feet catching the harness and leaving him almost standing on his head. “Shit,” he said. He kicked free, rolled, and scrambled to his hands and knees in the darkness. “Dree!” “I’m outside,” she called, her voice far off. “Can you come out?” Jeff‘s body weighed him down. The gravity of this place had to be high. He crawled painfully back through the little ship until he found the open hatch, then worked his way over the edge of the hatch to drop heavily to sandy dirt. The air carried a slightly bitter tang, as if acidic or parched in some way, but a faint unexpected scent of flowers made him sniff intently. “Over here.” Jeff turned to see Dree sitting a few steps away, her bad leg tucked under her, her face turned toward the last glimmers of the setting star-sun. “Jeff, this place is beautiful.” She raised both hands to the sky. Jeff looked up. Overhead, the stars burned intensely in a scattering that was new to him. A few long parallel streaks of nacreous cloud, pearl and silver, rode high in the wake of the sunset, seemingly as remote as the stars glowing between them. “Welcome to Tarnus,” Dree said. “I’ve done my job.” “Your job?” Jeff crawled over to sit beside her. His chest and belly hurt. “Getting you here. That was my job. Now I can stop working.” She smiled. “Turn off. Go to sleep. Rest.” “You’re coming with me,” Jeff said. “No. I’m done. There’s nothing more for me to do, not here. I was made for space. This is different. My skeleton handles stress from accelerations, but not as well from constant weight.” “So what are you going to do? Die?” “That’s right. I’ll just sit here and shut down. You have to go find the people now, if you can.” “But you’re alive. You said so, you said you weren’t sure whether you were actually alive or not. I’m not leaving you here.” Jeff took Dree‘s hand. She looked him full in the face, with a gaze that carried both sadness and calm. “Getting you here was my last job. Nothing in me knows what else there might be to do. I’m a creature of the vacuum, made to live and work in space. There’s no way for us to go back to space again. This is the end of my life.” Jeff exploded. “No! You’re still alive, and that’s all that matters. You’re not some Nain. And you don’t even know that there’s no spaceflight here. They could send you back up, repair you--“ “No, Jeff.” She squeezed his hand. “There’s no spaceflight here at all. I’ve listened to the records kept in the starship of all the radio emissions of the planet. There’s no sign of a launch, no signature, no messaging, that makes any sense.” “Then there’s no people.” “I didn’t say that.” “But how would you think there were any people?” Dree looked away into the deepening darkness and said nothing. “You’ve heard something, haven’t you?” He moved to face her. “You were lying, weren’t you, about no messaging?” She still looked away, straight through him. “You heard something bad. What was it? What are you sending me into?” Jeff brought his face so close to Dree‘s that he could feel the heat radiating from her. She turned her face aside. “It wasn’t about you. It was about me.” “What? I’m not going to stop asking until you tell me the truth.” “There are people here. And there are other intelligences, made by humans. But they have laws here about intelligences, and my type of intelligence is against the laws of this planet. I’m a sentine. When they find out what I am, they will destroy me.” She said this with complete calm, but she watched Jeff‘s face closely. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” he said, utterly sure of his feelings. “You are my friend, my protector, and my lifesaver. I won’t let them do anything to you.” Dree smiled gently. “You won’t be able to stop them. There are millions of them.” “Why did you lie to me? You knew all this all along.” “What would you have done if I’d told you the truth?” “Just what we’re doing, that’s what.” “But what if they decide to kill you too? Then everything I’ve done for you will be for nothing.” Dree looked down at her hands. “I had to get you here. When you made me tell you the rest, you made me risk everything I had done. Now you’re making everything much harder for me.” To Jeff‘s surprise, drops glistened as they fell from her eyes into her palms. He struggled to his knees, came to her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, feeling her silent sobs. “So sentines are people,” he said. “No!” she answered, looking up at him. “We’re… we can’t be human. We were made.” Wincing from the reentry burns, she rubbed her hands together vigorously, drying off the tears. “Made so you could cry? Made so you could love? That’s human!” In a slow, soft voice, Dree chanted, “They cut up human tissues, And spawned us from the genes, And built us into monsters, And called us all sentines. “One of my sisters made that up when we were in training in hard vacuum. We laughed. It was true.” Now Dree gazed off into the dark, nothing but starlight and a bit of evening afterglow lighting her face. Her pale hair glistened blue-white under the stars. Jeff kissed her. Her mouth tasted dry and strange, with odd tinges of cedar and lemon, but it was warm and soft, and he cradled her in his arms. She took the kiss and gave it back, and for a long moment the two of them stayed locked together. “You’re coming with me, monster,” he said. “Only if you order it,” she responded. “I so order it.” “Then we will need to find a way to move me. I’m heavier than you think.” Jeff staggered to his feet. His knees buckled abruptly, and he sat down hard and fell over. “Maybe we should rest a little, first. Is there any water?” “I don’t think so. The ship is cleaned out. We’ll have to look for water here in the morning.” “Then sleep is the next good idea. Do you sleep?” She laughed. “Yes, I do, when I want to reorganize patterns in my mind. This seems like a good time for that.” “How about letting me lie next to you while you reorganize?” An hour passed. Jeff took one last look up at the stars overhead. I’ll figure all this out in the morning. He wondered how they looked, a man and a… woman, lying side by side in a vast plain, next to a wrecked spacecraft on a planet new to both of them. The idea overwhelmed him; he retreated from it, and let Dree‘s warm body give him comfort as they lay motionless. Tomorrow. There was at last a tomorrow: a sunrise, a daylight, a home. And much else.