To Conquer Chaos

XVII

That day began like any other for Nestamay, although an hour earlier than most, for it would again be her turn to keep overnight watch after sunset, and shortly after midday she would have to try and catch up on her sleep; that apart, everything was as usual.

Washed, and having attended to baby Dan’s vegetable-like needs, she fetched their day’s rations and prepared a quick breakfast. She hardly spoke to Grandfather-indeed, since that unexpected cracking of his self-control which had followed her accusations against Jasper, he seemed deliberately to have hardened the shell around himself again, and spent more time than ever in silent anxious musing.

Their frugal meal was almost over when there was a bang on the door of the hovel, patched together like the rest of the building from salvaged scrap. The caller didn’t wait for an invitation to enter, but stepped in at once.

It was Keefe, a burly man with only one eye, the other having been lost years ago to a newly-hatched thing. He carried a large cracked plastic dish in which rested a clump of soil containing a sickly plant.

“Sorry to disturb you, Maxall,” he said. “We found this out towards the East Brokes, or rather my kid found it. She doesn’t think she’s seen one like it before, and nor do I.”

Grandfather grunted. “It could happen,” he said sceptically. “Let’s have a look at it.” He reached out a casual hand and took the dish.

Rubbing his hands, Keefe waited. It was logical that he should bring a problem of this kind to Grandfather, Nestamay knew-nobody else had so much information so clearly memorised. But it was obvious he didn’t like the chore. If only Grandfather didn’t have this gift of making even grown, knowledgeable men feel like ignorant children …!

“Nestamay!” Grandfather’s sharp voice broke into her meditation. “Get my microscope, will you?”

Nestamay jumped to her feet and went to the row of shelves at the back of the hovel on which were kept the few serviceable scientific instruments their family had culled from the mess below the dome. She took down the microscope gingerly and bore it to the old man wrapped in its antirust cloth.

“Is it something new?” Keefe ventured.

“D’you think I’d be bothering with the microscope if I was sure?” Grandfather retorted, picking off a sample leaf and sliding it into place under the objective.

Keefe rolled his eye as though seeking strength from above, then caught Nestamay’s attention and gave her a grin which he probably intended to be sympathetic. But the girl had a sudden attack of family loyalty and tossed her hair haughtily.

“Hah!” Grandfather said a moment later. He put aside the leaf and held out a hand towards Nestamay. When she didn’t immediately understand the gesture, he snapped his fingers. “Knife, you little fool!” he exclaimed. “Do I have to tell you every time what it is I want?”

Flushing, Nestamay fetched the knife. Maybe she shouldn’t have made such an unfriendly response to Keefe after all, she thought. Grandfather could be incredibly maddening. Sulky, she dropped back to her seat.

His age no handicap to his deft fingers, Grandfather sectioned the stem of the plant and selected a tiny roundel to examine with the microscope. Adjusting the focus minutely, he addressed Keefe.

“Out towards the East Brokes, you said?”

“That’s right. The way the thing went after we kicked it out of Channel Nine the other night. I thought it might have come through on the thing’s hoof, perhaps-in a lump of mud.” He hesitated. “That is, if it is something new.”

“It’s new,” Grandfather confirmed, leaning back with a sigh. “Either that, or else an unreported life-stage of some plant we already know. But that’s improbable. It’s a matter of years since we had the last stranger, and any variant form would have been spotted before this.”

Nestamay bent to the plastic dish and stared at the innocent-looking plant in it. Rather commonplace: quite small as yet, standing a mere four or five inches high, with dark green stems and curious little red thorns. But she knew better than to voice such a reaction. The first-and last-time she had doubted the necessity of keeping a check on any and every intrusive plant, Grandfather had taken her by the ear and marched her around the dome to the point from which the pullulating miniature jungle within the Station could be most clearly seen. There he had stopped. He had said, “Once those were harmless-looking seeds!”

That was one lesson of Grandfather’s which she had never needed to revise.

“What ought we to do about it, then?” Keefe inquired.

“Nestamay, what are your assigned duties this morning?” Grandfather said, turning.

“Uh-well, it’s my watch-night tonight. So I’m on half-day general assistance.”

“Perfect. Keefe, get this plant of yours out on a stand at the mouth of Channel Nine-about two o’clock of the dome. Nestamay, make the rounds of the community. Everyone is to have a sight of this plant within the next hour. I mean everyone, down to and including toddling children. But particularly I want to make sure that there’s no infection in the hydroponic trays, so call there first. All free-day worker adults are to report to Keefe and study the plant and conduct a ground-search for any further specimens. Begin on the trail of the East Brokes thing, and work outwards in a fan-pattern. Send that little girl with the good sketching talent here to me so she can draw the anomalous micro-features and we can file them for reference, and tell her that she’ll be wanted to draw the thing in vivo as well.”

Nestamay nodded. “That’s-uh-Danianel you want to do the sketching, right?”

“Yes. Well, don’t just sit there! Get moving!”

When they heard the news, most people sighed and shrugged and accepted the necessity of doing as Grandfather ordered. There were a few half-hearted objections, naturally; Egrin, sweating as always in the humid environment demanded by the hydroponic trays, wiped his face and snarled, “If the old fool thinks I could have overlooked a strange plant in my own trays he must be crazy!” But even he, after boiling off his annoyance, went compliantly to study the specimen and memorise its characteristics for future reference.

It wasn’t until she had completed her round of the community that Nestamay realised she had not yet located and spoken to Jasper.

Frowning, she wondered where she could have missed him. She had called at his family’s hovel, she had notified the chief of the party with which he usually worked … Where could he have got to?

She went in search of one of his kinfolk, and found his mother returning from her dutiful trip to inspect the plant and listen to Keefe.

“Where’s Jasper?” Nestamay demanded. “I haven’t told him yet.”

“It’s his free-day,” Jasper’s mother countered.

“So?” Nestamay was impatient. “I know that-I’ve spoken with people from his working party. But Grandfather said I was to tell absolutely everyone, and I particularly don’t want to leave out Jasper because-”

“I know why not!” his mother rasped. “If I’d known our genes were going to tie him down to the choice of you for a mate, I’d have chosen differently myself!”

“Tie him down!” Nestamay blazed. “What about him making Danianel skip her watch the other night? What’s tying him down there? I’m not-I’d as soon live single!”

“You’ve got no right to spread these foul-mouthed stories about my son!”

“A good way to stop them spreading would be to stop him behaving the way he does,” Nestamay said, and marched away before the flabbergasted woman could reply.

She felt rather pleased with herself for ending the argument with such a telling phrase. As a result, it was some minutes before she recalled she still hadn’t found Jasper. And if she didn’t manage to find him and send him off to join the party scouting in the East Brokes direction for more of the intruding plants, there was bound to be someone who would leak the information back to Grandfather and earn her a bawling-out.

He couldn’t possibly be around the far side of the dome in this secret love-nest of his, could he? Nestamay paused, a frown furrowing her young brow. If so, he was there on his own-all the eligible girls of the community were accounted for and had gone to report to Keefe.

Even so, she would have to check that possibility.

She took a firm grip on herself and went around the dome, her mind full of thoughts of Jasper as he related to her future. The past day or two a possible solution had suggested itself to her. Even if the community dared not risk losing Jasper’s genetic lines, or blending them with anyone else’s but her own, did that necessarily imply that she had to live with Jasper as his permanent mate? Couldn’t she mother two children by him and continue to live with Grandfather, and then have her own home when Grandfather died? It was against custom and precedent, but it was possible Grandfather might give his consent-after all, the community was approaching a really desperate pass, and old-fashioned ways of organising such things might have to be sacrificed anyway …

“Why, it’s Nestamay! I didn’t know it was your free-day!”

The mocking words recalled her to the present. She spun to see Jasper emerging from a dark hole among the tangle of ruined machinery and collapsed dome-struts which marked this side of the Station.

“It isn’t my free-day,” Nestamay said after a pause. “I wish you’d told somebody where you were going! I’ve had to hunt all over the place for you.”

A broad smile spread across Jasper’s face. “Well, well! What happened? Did Danianel give you such glowing reports of this little hideaway of mine that you couldn’t resist having a look at it-is that it?”

He moved towards her. Automatically she took a step back.

“Stop it!” she rapped. “Listen! I have to tell you to go and see Keefe around the dome near Channel Nine. He found a new plant. All free-day workers have to report to make a search for it.”

“What?” Jasper’s smile vanished. “On a free-day? Who says so?”

“Here and now I say so!” Nestamay exclaimed.

“Oh! It’s your old fool of a grandfather again, I suppose!” Jasper wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Well, I’m not going to turn out and sweat over bare ground all day for his sake! Let him look for the damned plants himself!”

“You won’t get away with that,” Nestamay warned. “The order says for everyone to go, including you.”

“I didn’t get the order,” Jasper said bluntly. He waved at the dome. “Nobody in sight, is there? Nobody except us! You can say you told me as much as you like, and I’ll say you gave up looking before you found me. How’s your beloved grandfather going to like that, hey?” The smile oozed back.

“But I tell you what!” he went on, before the dismayed girl could think of a foolproof answer. “I will go … on one small condition. That’s if you come in there with me for-oh, an hour or so, not more. Then if anybody asks what took you so long, I’ll be quite honest. I’ll say I was in there and you didn’t know where exactly to find me and it took a long time to track me down. There, how’s that for a bargain? Afterwards I’ll show up like a good boy for this damned search-party, and you’ll get a pat on the head from your grandfather for devotion to duty.”

He put his hand out to take her arm and lead her inside the dome to his vaunted secret lair.

Abruptly, at his touch, a flood of rage and loathing boiled up in Nestamay. She had tumbled with all the other children of her age-group, boys and girls alike, in their crude wrestling games, and had often overcome opponents older and heavier than herself. On becoming a nominal adult she was supposed to have put all that behind her, but the grip of Jasper’s hand seemed to trigger a reflex response. She hardly knew what she was doing, she was so furious, but seconds later Jasper was cartwheeling over her back, taken totally by surprise, and sliding on his face in the dust.

Panicking, she jumped away, thinking he would fling himself on her and seek revenge. But he didn’t do so. Panting, getting slowly to hands and knees with a huge graze-mark bleeding down his cheek, he fixed her with coldly cruel eyes.

“You’ll be sorry for that, Nestamay,” he whispered. “I warn you! You’ll wish you were dead before I finish getting even with you for this!”

There was something in his look and his voice which made him seem suddenly inhuman. Nestamay repressed a desire to scream, spun on the spot and took to her heels.