Athelrod and Walton met me as I approached the elevator to the outside world. They carried glass holdalls containing parts they must have removed from the lark-plane. "Too late!" Walton called cheerfully as he approached. "We're all done."
"Not much there that we needed," Athelrod said. "Still, we got a few design ideas…"
"Have you seen Jelca?" I asked.
"He came by the plane outside, maybe two hours ago," Athelrod answered. "Didn't stay long."
"So he came back down here?"
"No," Walton said. "I asked him to see if he could fix the glitches in my weather equipment. He's very good at that sort of thing."
"So he's up at your weather station now?" I asked.
Walton nodded.
"How do I get there?" After getting directions, I headed out at a run.
Walton and Athelrod stared after me with bewildered expressions.
The Coming Cold
The air outside was cooler than the day before — enough to prick up goose pimples on my bare legs. At the west end of the valley, the sun had already dipped below the far peak, though the sky was still coldly bright. Trying not to shiver, I hurried up the forest trail that led to the weather station. The world smelled of damp pine and winter.
I found Jelca sitting on a high rock looking down on the river that wound along the base of the mountain. The water ran fast and shallow; even though it was dozens of meters below us, I could hear the rattle of it running over its gravel bed. The sound was cold. The world was cold. In the forest behind us, each tree felt closed in on itself, withdrawing into its own thoughts as winter approached. The stone everywhere — under Jelca, under my feet, under the snow caps of the mountains — looked like it had been dark gray once but was now bleached pale with disappointment.
Jelca turned to look my way. He said nothing. Behind him, a small anemometer rotated listlessly as its cups accepted the wind.
I waited for him to speak.
"Ullis told me it was artificial skin," he said at last.
"Yes."
"Really just a bandage."
"That's right."
He stared at my cheek a few more seconds. "So that's it then. You've made it."
"Made what?"
"Full human status."
"Don't be stupid."
He said nothing for a moment. He wasn't even looking at me. Then: "You know what the strange thing is? When I thought of you, I pictured you this way. Without the birthmark. I would have said it wasn't part of my mental image of you; the birthmark made no impression on my mind. But I was wrong. When I saw you yesterday, you looked like one of them. The bastards who banished us here. It was like they'd stolen one more thing from me."
He thought of me, I told myself. I wanted to ask him a hundred questions about what he'd thought, when it happened, everything that had passed through his mind.
No. I refused to let down my guard with him. Not now.
Probably never.
"I'm being ridiculous," he said. "Why should I mind that you look so beautiful?"
Beautiful. He found me beautiful.
"Jelca," I said. "Did you kill Eel?"
He was silent a moment, then nodded.
Accidents and Reality
"It was an accident," he said.
I sat down on the rock, separated from him by only an arm's length. The stone was cold beneath me… very cold, despite its exposure to the long day's sun.
"An accident," he repeated. "A mistake right from the beginning." He glanced at me. "You probably think I'm shit."
I didn't trust myself to say yes or no.
"There's no point trying to justify myself," he said. "When I met Eel and Oar, I was just looking to vent myself. Vent everything I felt about being heaved into exile with a piss-hole like Kalovski… and there were Eel and Oar. Looking so perfect it made me furious. Artificial people — like all the artificial people in the Fleet and everywhere. So I…"
When he didn't finish his sentence, I said, "You either raped or seduced them."
He shrugged. "I either raped or seduced them. Couldn't tell you which. They didn't put up a fight, but they didn't understand what was going on either. It happened, the two of them together that first time, because I couldn't stop myself. Well, no — because I couldn't bother to stop myself. I couldn't think of any reason that made it worth the trouble."
"Eel and Oar themselves should have been enough reason."
"You'd think so," he admitted. "But the truth is, they weren't real women. None of them are real human beings. They're glass models of human beings… or what the League of Peoples believes humans should be. Beautiful dead ends, just as most people in the Technocracy are beautiful dead ends.
"You know what I once thought?" he went on. "I thought the whole Explorer Corps was a training program for real people. Everyone else was pampered and spoiled, but we were real. The Admiralty wouldn't let doctors cure our problems because they wanted us to develop strength of character; they needed a small band of individuals who had to fight for respect so that we'd gain depth. Then one day someone would tap us on the shoulder and say, 'Congratulations. You've made it. Everyone else is useless, but you've learned all the painful lessons of life. You've won. Now we'll cure your trivial little scalp condition and make you someone important, because you've earned it.' You see? I had this daydream that everything was planned. That all the crap we've suffered had a point, and we'd be properly compensated in the end. Not dumped on a planet populated by empty people with nothing to contribute."
"You're underestimating the people of Melaquin," I said. "They may be different from humans, but—"
"Save it," he interrupted. "I know all the arguments. And you're right, I shouldn't dismiss them. Eel and Oar deserved better than I gave them. But I didn't have it in me. They kept reminding me of all the shallow 'beautiful people' who make the Fleet a hell. So I used them and used them and used them until I couldn't stand the sight of them anymore."
"Then you killed Eel," I said.
"That was Ullis's fault," he replied. "If she'd just let me leave quietly… but she grabbed Eel and forced me to explain things. I tried rational discussion, I really did. I told Eel that Ullis and I had a duty to join the other Explorers; I told her that she and Oar would feel out of place if they came with us. Eel wouldn't listen. She had the mind of a child. She didn't want to be left out. Finally, I had no option but to…"
He lapsed into silence, so I finished the sentence for him. "You shot her," I said. "And even though the regs made you carry a standard-issue stunner when you landed, you must have amplified the pistol as soon as you knew you were stuck on Melaquin."
"True," he admitted. "Everyone knows the guns are underpowered…"
"They're underpowered because anything more could be deadly," I snapped. "I can imagine what high intensity sonics did to a woman made of glass."
"You think she shattered like crystal?" He shook his head. "Nothing so dramatic. These people aren't real glass; you know that. Eel stayed on her feet a long time. I kept shooting and shooting and she wouldn't fall down. And I swear I didn't believe the gun would really damage her; she was so tough, you could pound her with a sledgehammer without making a dent. But something inside her body was vulnerable to sonics. Something must have… cracked. Maybe her brain, maybe her heart, I don't know. But the instant she fell, she was dead." He shook his head as if this was an incomprehensible mystery. "So I dragged her into the woods and stuffed her under a pile of brush."