Angels and Exiles (6 page)

“We’re not safe here,” Flikka said suddenly. “We have to get into the basement.”

Caspar shook his head no. Flikka pulled him away from the window. “Let’s go, Caspar! We’re in danger!”

But Caspar freed himself from her grip. He was staring at the alien, and a shiver passed through him: he could understand its body. It said
Help Pain Pain Oh Help Pain
.

Then Security caught up with the alien, barely ten metres from the hospital. Flikka, overcome by the spectacle, ceased trying to pull Caspar away.

There were six men and women, and each carried a short baton. By the law of the Fleet, no one on Station could carry a weapon, so that ship crews need never fear harm from Station personnel. The alien carried no visible weapon, but it was nearly half again as tall as a human, and massively built. It slowed its progress, halted. Caspar could read the way it held its arms. It spoke of confusion, pain so great it twisted the mind nearly to rupture.

The Security people tried to form a ring around the alien. Their postures spelled uncertainty and desperate courage. The alien sprang into movement suddenly, smashed its arm into the chest of the nearest man. The man fell to the ground like a broken toy. The alien opened its mouth then, and moaned like a bassoon, a weirdly beautiful sound. Its knees pumped up and down, and they said
Pain Oh Please Pain Help Help
.

And Caspar understood suddenly that this being was a sinner. A sinner overwhelmed by the sins it had picked up during the passage through overspace. A sinner driven to madness by the weight on its soul. Who would kill and kill again, unless it could confess and obtain absolution. And no one else could tell; no one else could read the being like he could. They only saw a monster from nightmares, something whose purpose could only be to destroy.

He wanted to explain this to Flikka, but his tongue was a dead strip of flesh in his mouth, and there was no way his hands could speak the words for him. He could have written it down if he had ever bothered to learn how. He had been a stupid boy all his life. It was too late to make up for it.

The five remaining Security had bunched up in a tight line, trying to protect the entrance to the hospital. The alien moved toward them slowly, birdlike, one step at a time. Why couldn’t they see they were going to die if they kept blocking its way?

Caspar felt his shame inside his belly, like a piece of metal weighing him down. He had to do something or more people would die, and it would be his fault. He had to speak, somehow. In desperation, he took Karl’s cigarette from his pocket, struck a crimped match, and lit the cigarette. He took a long deep drag, let the smoke fill his lungs and bubble up to his head. Outside, the alien pounced on a woman, raised her off the ground, and threw her against the wall, five metres away. The last four Security tried to rush it, were scattered in all directions, torn and bloody.

Flikka finally snapped out of her horrified fascination. She grabbed Caspar and pulled him out of the room. He let himself be carried away. He was trying to talk to Flikka, but she couldn’t understand his tobacco words.

Outside the room, there was confusion in the corridor. The Security man was now at the end, away from the emergency exit. He was trying, and failing, to keep order. Caspar’s mind was working fast, but strangely. For the first time in years, there was no longer that little watcher inside his skull that heard all his thoughts and judged them. He knew what he had to do, but not how he knew it.

He gauged his time, and when the right moment had come, he yanked his crippled hand out of Flikka’s grasp, then ran down the corridor toward the emergency exit. He reached it in a few seconds, pulled the bar out of the handle, and opened the door. He heard Flikka’s cry superimposed over the electronic wail triggered by the door opening. Then he was outside, just around the corner from the alien. Caspar took a last drag on the cigarette, then threw it away. He ran to the corner, then slowed down and rounded it carefully.

The alien was fifteen metres away, battering at the main doors to the hospital, still moaning musically. The Security personnel were scattered all around it. All the bodies said
death
. Caspar made himself ignore them and walk forward to meet the alien.

Behind him, he heard Flikka screaming and running. He knew she would risk anything to take him out of danger; he had only a few seconds.

He spoke out loud to the alien, with tobacco words. He came to it walking not running, palms held forward, trying to smile.

The bullet-shaped head turned toward him. The alien’s body still shouted
Help Pain Oh Pain
. It faced him then, and suddenly it bounded forward, and its huge hands grabbed him under the shoulders and raised him high. Caspar knew suddenly that he would be killed, thrown against the wall or torn apart. But it did not happen. The alien held him high, motionless. Caspar spoke again, in a thin strangled voice, all the tobacco words that filled his head. He promised the alien it would be helped, that his sister would free it from its sins.
Hhuunnh, ahhuunnh-hah, hunnh, hunnh-hah
.

And the alien lowered him to the ground, gently. Still its body shouted
Pain Pain Help
. It took Caspar’s crippled hand in its own and looked at him with startling eyes, blue eyes, human eyes. It opened its mouth and spoke in turn, a succession of vowels with just the hint of consonants.

“Caspar . . .” Flikka’s voice, behind him. Caspar did not turn around to look at her. He pulled on the alien’s hand gently, going toward the town. And the alien followed, towering over him, a figure from nightmare, its clothes speckled with human blood, yet tame, for the moment.

Caspar stretched out his whole left hand, beckoned Flikka with a twitch of the fingers. And after a few paces, he felt her hand in his. The alien turned to look at her, but did not otherwise react.

Now Caspar saw people coming from the town, more Security. He looked to Flikka, terrified that the alien would panic. She glanced back at him. He did not need to speak any tobacco words; this time she understood him. She cupped a hand to her mouth and shouted out: “Stand back! Let us pass! Don’t come close!”

Security wavered, stopped, but did not disperse. They would still bar their way into the town.

She asked: “Caspar, where are we going? Do you know?” He nodded yes, vigorously. “Where? Where do you want to take it? Why is it following you? What did you do to it?” The questions came in a rush, betraying Flikka’s terror at what might have happened to him. Caspar tried to say
Slowly
.
Ask me the right questions only
.

“Wait, wait.” Flikka bit her lip, calmed herself. “You said you know where we’re going. Did it tell you where it wanted to go?” No. “So you’ve decided?” Yes. “You want to take it someplace; someplace I know?” Yes, yes. “Our home?” No! “A public place.” No.

Then it hit her. Her eyes widened. “You want me to confess it.” Caspar nodded yes, weeping in relief. “Caspar, that’s crazy.” She spoke softly. Still the alien followed behind Caspar, a nightmare twice as tall as the boy who led it. Caspar signed no. “You think it’s bearing a sin? But—oh God, oh God, wait, now I know. Oh God, you’re right. Of course . . .”

They were approaching Security. Still they stood in their way. Flikka raised her voice. “Let us pass. I am taking this being to confession.”

“You’re crazy,” said the Security leader. “We won’t let you into town.”

“Our station was built to provide services to overspace crews. This being came down to be healed of the sins it accumulated in transit. By Fleet law, we can’t refuse to confess it.”

“This isn’t a human being, and it’s killed six people already.”

“If you don’t let us pass, it’ll kill me and my brother, and you’ll be next. For God’s sake, man, think!”

Caspar felt panic. He told the alien it would be all right, it was being taken to be confessed. The huge body began to quiver with tension. The grip of the fingers that held his crippled hand tightened to a painful intensity.

At the last instant, Security moved aside and let them pass. They formed a semicircle in back of them and followed their progress. Flikka said, in a commanding voice: “I need ten metres of strong chain for restraints, and have Medical on standby, for what it’s worth. Do it now.” Caspar was astonished to see a Security man dash off to do her bidding.

Soon they reached Maar Square and went into the twisty street of the confessors. All the while, Caspar spoke to the alien, tried to reassure it. It had relaxed when Security let them pass, but it had been tensing up again.

Finally they were at Flikka’s workhouse. Flikka opened the door for them. Caspar went inside; the alien bent its huge frame to enter. It saw the confession machines and uttered a terrifyingly musical scream. It loosed Caspar’s hand, laid its body onto the bed; the frame had been built to accommodate even very large sinners, and only the lower half of its legs stuck out. Flikka came inside, staggering under the load of the chains. Moving purposefully, she passed length after length around the alien’s body. She held her head at an angle that said she no longer felt any fear: her duties occupied all of her thoughts.

The alien suffered itself to be bound tightly. Panting, Flikka secured the chains with a heavy lock and went to activate the equipment. Her fingers depressed keys, adjusted sensors. A pattern of tangled lines emerged on the main screen.

“All right,” said Flikka out loud, speaking to an invisible audience. “You see what I see. I’m picking up standard signs of accumulated sins. Potential very high, no structural anomalies.” Caspar suddenly understood she must have activated a relay to Administration. “I’m going to follow standard procedure, except without any verbal contact with the subject. Activating probe.”

She swung the metal hemisphere into position over the alien’s head. Its features twisted around; it looked at her with its human eyes and it made a flutelike gasping sound. It repeated the sound as she adjusted the controls. “Matrix responding normally. Potential still very high. I’m drawing the first one out.”

When the first scream came, Caspar’s eardrums felt it like a metal blade stabbing into his ears. Once he had been deafened, the rest were easier to take. The alien twisted inside its bonds, but they did not break. Its motions shook the bed, but the steel frame held. And after a moment Caspar realized that the constrained spasms were intelligible to him, far more clearly than the general posture. They spoke complete sentences.

I told a lie about someone I knew, so I could get a job in his place. And he had been the one who had told me about the opening. I’m so very sorry.

It was a human sin, weighing on an alien’s soul. While Aurinn’s sin, and the sin Perle had confessed, they were alien sins weighing on human souls.

The alien confessed another sin, then another, and another, and when the last sin had come out, it went limp and closed its eyes.

“Process complete.” Flikka’s voice was frayed, but strong. “Potential zero. Absolution has been obtained.” She paused for a second or two, then added, “I’m removing the restraints.”

Then, moving quickly, she undid the length of chain. Caspar helped her. The effects of the cigarette had faded by now, and his mouth was empty of all words.

When they had removed half the chain, the alien opened its eyes and helped free itself. It rose from the bed, then took Flikka’s hand in its own and made a gesture with the other hand. Caspar could not understand it; in fact, he could not interpret the alien’s body language at all anymore. It was like looking at a statue.

The alien released Flikka’s hand and went out of the workhouse. Flikka and Caspar followed, uncertain. Outside were thirty Security, looking determined. The alien halted, spread its arms wide, hung its head, raised one foot then the other, alternately.

The ring of Security left one opening, leading outside. After a while, the alien stopped its display, looked around itself. It moaned gently, like a snatch of song, and began slowly going back toward the landing field. Security closed up behind it and let it return to the metal fish. Caspar and Flikka trailed the procession, unwilling to let the being out of their sight. It did not look back at them; Caspar did not know if he wished it had, or not. No one prevented the alien from going aboard. The access door shut behind it, and then the shuttle took off in an astonishing fashion, floating five metres off the ground without any thruster firing, then suddenly rising in a steep parabola, up toward orbit.

Caspar and Flikka were taken to confer with Administration. Flikka told all she had seen, repeated it several times. Caspar was questioned also, a long and unpleasant process. His neck soon began to ache from all the nodding and head-shaking. Flikka protested on his behalf, but the interrogator did not relent.

After a long while, the questions ceased. The Administration woman heaved a sigh, shut off the audio/video recorder.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said. “Please return to your residence now. If there is anything more, we will contact you.”

Flikka’s body had been speaking anger louder and louder throughout the interrogation. Now she let her words take over.