Recognition (2 page)

The escort was still speaking. “When you meet
some of the leaders, the ‘Graven, you’ll see what I mean.”

I forced my attention away from the workmen.
“I’ll be allowed to?” Contact with the native inhabitants was an
opportunity I had not expected, nor had it been promised at my
interviews. Eclipsis is a Protected World; Terrans are confined to
our own small district in the interest of keeping cultural
contamination to a minimum.

“Possibly,” the escort answered with belated
circumspection. “That is, it’s customary for the new person from
the Information Department to attend cooperative meetings, provided
the ‘Graven Coalition agrees.” Again there was the nagging worry
about my eyes, a politically incorrect thought he didn’t dare
express.

My employers didn’t want Eclipsians to see
me, I realized. Well, they would have to come right out and say it
to my face. I had spent my whole life not fitting in, looking odd,
being different. That was the reason I had come here, to this dark,
cold world where nobody wanted to be posted, where being different
couldn’t matter because everybody was different. I would go to
these meetings, with my Evil Eye, I vowed. Let them try and stop
me. Since in my experience all meetings became deadly dull after
about five minutes, I’d probably be begging to be excused from this
“privilege” soon enough.

We reached the check-in point and I was
issued my off-world ID and housing assignment. While the rest of my
documents were processed, I was able to deflect any further
attention by joining my fellow pilgrims, all wearing dark glasses,
to admire the spectacular view: an orange, setting sun at almost
total eclipse. By the time we were ready to leave the immigration
complex the thin crescent had sunk below the horizon, the sky had
clouded over and my third eyelids had retracted. It had also
started to drizzle.

My escort turned resignedly from the sliding
doors. “There’s an indoor passage, back the other way. Not much
longer, and dry. It always rains here,” he added, “except when it
snows or hails or sleets. I don’t know why they can’t build a dome
over the whole Terran Sector.”

Because they’re not allowed to.
The
bitterly triumphant thought was in my mind as if someone else, not
the escort, had put it there. The escort’s complaint had been
rhetorical, a routine grumbling at the restrictions that Eclipsis’
protected status placed on the Terrans’ attempts to recreate a
familiar environment, even in their allotted sector. Despite their
preferences, they were forced occasionally to venture into an
uncontrolled climate, enduring cold weather and precipitation of
all kinds.

However this thought had got into my mind, it
was appealing. “Please,” I said, “let’s walk outside. I’ve spent
months breathing canned air. You remember what it’s like, don’t
you?” He was so young he must have preceded me quite recently. “I’d
kill for fresh air, even with sleet.”

My escort was a decent guy. He didn’t
remember—he’d been born here—but he’d traveled off-world on short
trips and was surprised at how bothered I was by what to him had
been unremarkable. We walked, briskly, what turned out to be a mere
two blocks to the luxury high-rise for Terran employees, one of the
perks offered to encourage applicants.

We stopped at the entrance. “There’s a full
set of order menus on your holonet,” he said. “The first dinner is
on us. Your bags will be delivered as soon as you sign in to prove
you’re there to receive them.” He glanced at the display on his
cube and smiled awkwardly. “We can’t be on Terran time, you know,
so it will seem like a long night. I’ll come by in the morning and
escort you to work.” He was desperate to get away, out of the wet
and cold.

The short walk in the freezing rain had been
a new sensation for me. The air I had craved had exceeded all my
expectations. Although city air is city air, there was a north
wind, bringing in traces of pine and wood smoke along with the
sleet. Imagine what it must be like outside the Terran Sector.
Outside the city!
I allowed myself an experimental shiver.
Yes, the climate here was everything the dire predictions on Terra
had promised.

My good humor restored, I assured my escort
I’d be fine, and I bore the inevitable handshake without flinching.
After such an encouraging introduction to my new home, I could
tolerate the queasiness that being touched always produces. We
parted with a mutual sense of relief.

The concierge, accustomed to new arrivals,
was thankfully incurious, and I was soon free to examine my
apartment. It wasn’t bad, far more spacious than the studio I could
afford in New York, with a separate bedroom and every amenity, even
in this backwater. Overheated, of course. Sweat had already run
from my armpits down my sides and was sticking my shirt to my back
as I checked the thermostat. It informed me that it adjusted for
outdoor temperature, wind velocity and direction, the apartment’s
exposure, window area and light; that it was optimally set for all
these parameters; and that it could be changed only by the
authorized maintenance staff. I sighed and headed for the shower.
Tomorrow I’d see if my salary ran high enough to bribe the super to
lower the setting; for tonight I’d take the blankets off the bed
and sleep naked between the sheets.

Eclipsis has a twenty-six hour day. It was no
hardship to have some extra time to unpack, configure the holonet
to my preferences and see what kinds of food I could order. I felt
the familiar depression descending as I ate the complimentary meal
of oddly-spiced deep-fried vegetables and nuts called “Eclipsian
stew.”

It’s not easy to admit having wasted your
whole life. All I’d ever wanted was to be normal. But I was pale
and light-sensitive in a tanned, sun-drenched world. I had been
born with protective third eyelids that came oozing down at the
first glimmer of UV rays from the searing Terran sun. Worst of all,
I heard voices—real voices—that nobody else heard. I knew they were
real, because I recognized the speakers. They were the “voices” of
other people’s thoughts, and I “heard” them when I was with other
people. It’s not as interesting as it sounds. Sexually and
emotionally, it’s a disaster.

In the course of my work as an information
specialist I’d learned enough about Eclipsis to know that the
climate was cold, with an alpine ecosystem. There were two moons,
locked in a bizarre orbit that caused a solar eclipse at least once
each day and twice on Crescent Day, the Sabbath of the eight-day
week. Lunar eclipses were so common that seasonal holidays were
marked by the occurrence of the rare full—and shadow-free moon.

Like most Protected Worlds, Eclipsis had been
settled by desperate refugees in the early years of the Climate
Cataclysm. During the intervening centuries, as Terrans adapted to
rising and acidic oceans, volatile weather and hothouse
temperatures, the descendants of the Eclipsian pioneers evolved in
isolation, until modern times brought an influx of visitors:
tourists, mostly, with the inevitable would-be developers and
hucksters.

As with any unknown group, rumors abounded:
that the Eclipsians were inbred halfwits; that they went naked and
barefoot in the snow; and that they practiced a form of magic that
seemed to work and had no rational explanation. Shamans, mediums,
channellers, positive-thinkers, faith-healers and priests: I’d
heard it all before. Every civilization, from the “primitive” to
the “advanced,” has its cults and its cult leaders. It’s an
unavoidable byproduct of human society, like offal from livestock.
If you don’t like tripe, stick with broccoli.

I had weighed the two unappealing ideas
against each other: living in a semi-feudal state with limited
technology, or clinging to the modern conveniences of a world that
wasn’t good for my mental or physical health. For my thirty-fifth
birthday I gave myself a present: I applied for a job on
Eclipsis.

Getting hired was easy, in a way. All I had
to do was convince the interviewer that I wanted to go somewhere
cold, dark and remote, without appearing to be psychotic. “I see it
as a professional challenge,” I’d said, stringing together the
words and phrases I read in her thoughts, the ideal responses to
the needling questions that were designed to weed out misfits like
me. “Working under difficult conditions will force me to adapt,
perfect my skills, instead of growing stale here.” It was my usual
way of handling all social situations, and whether because of it,
or because there were few candidates, I was offered the position,
information manager at the Terran Protectorate Headquarters in
Eclipsia, the largest city. Well, actually, the only city.

The trip out had given me plenty of time for
second thoughts, misgivings, and the chance to bail out at the last
station before the intergalaxial leap. I had never seriously
debated. There was nothing on Terra to stay for. My parents were
dead; I had no siblings, no children, not even a former lover worth
calling to say good-by. All the budding friendships and romances of
schooldays and workplace had dwindled to cool acquaintance, done in
by the unavoidable but hurtful intrusions of one-way
thought-reading.

Whatever I could find in life would have to
be here. Despite the heat I slept, dreaming of mountains covered by
forest, an icy, refreshing wind whistling through the treetops.

My first week, however, was disappointing.
Nothing had changed. It
was
cold and gloomy outside, but I
lived and worked in the Terran facilities with their controlled
climate and full-spectrum lighting that made my third eyelids slam
down as soon as I walked in the door. Better to be honest from the
start, I decided, than to hide behind sunglasses, with the
inevitable slip-up and disturbing reveal. My coworkers were all
Terrans, as are most Protectorate employees, and their reactions to
me on Eclipsis were the same as on Terra, as I learned from the
thoughts that accompanied the round of introductions.

But one thing was new—my “lover.” Almost as
soon as I took my first solitary walk outside, heading toward the
crenellated parapet of ‘Graven Fortress that dominates the
Eclipsian Sector of the city, he was there, a presence in my mind.
The feeling was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was a
combination of love, sex and something indescribable, like looking
in a mirror and seeing, not myself, but a reversed image or a
photographic negative. It was total acceptance, knowing another
person intimately and not worrying that what I might say or do was
wrong. I could express any emotion, any idea to him, and feel only
love in return. And he could do the same. I was aware of my own
all-encompassing love for him as I felt his for me.

I never doubted he was real; the impressions
were too distinct. He was male, no doubt about that, and he had to
be Eclipsian. I had never come upon a Terran in this way, and
something about him—his mind, his emotions, whatever it was I
sensed—was slightly askew, off kilter. Like me. It was as if both
of us were leaning away from the center, he in his direction, I in
mine. If we connected, pulling in a loving tug-of-war, we would
hold each other upright and steady, prevent ourselves from
falling.

Yet I made no attempts to find him—I didn’t
know how. It was enough for me at first, knowing that at certain
times, in the evening, and at some quiet moments during the day, he
would be with me. He came to me at work once, when I was
unprepared. A coworker saw me, looking, I suppose, as if I had
ingested a hallucinogen with my lunch. I could only smile and shake
my head at the concerned questions, go to the bathroom and lock
myself in, and wait for him to be called away on his own job,
whatever that was. But most days, when I came home from work,
accustomed to relaxing by reading, I would stare at the screen
unseeing while his presence filled me with a kind of comfort that
was like food.
There
, I would think.
Just stay
there
.

My new job was less fulfilling. The official
policy is strict observance of the rules for a Protected World: no
corruption of the indigenous culture, no attempts to modernize the
economy. Because of the stated directive for non-interference, we
responded to requests from Terrans who wanted to know about
start-ups and demographics, marketing and business plans with some
version of, “Sorry there’s nothing yet available on that subject.”
We were discouraged by the Terran higher-ups from giving the
correct answers: “That’s illegal,” or “There’s no such thing.”

By the end of my first week I could see that
the continuing Terran presence here was based on the unofficial
conviction that this stubborn world would have to give in
eventually to the delights of credit and unnecessary consumer
goods, of advertising and infotainment. Like cockroaches teeming
behind apparently clean walls, persisting in the face of hostility
or indifference, we would outlast the dwindling opposition. Until
then, we would stall. It hadn’t occurred to me on Terra, its
innocence lost centuries before Eclipsis’ original settlement, how
much I would dislike being a part of this.

After a few weeks, it was a relief from the
monotony to learn that a crisis was bringing a delegation from the
‘Graven Coalition to the Terran offices. I had heard about the
problems several years back, when the Coalition had complained that
the Armaments Convention, which bans the use, manufacture or
importation of all ballistic weapons, was not being enforced. The
Terrans were still picking up the pieces from ignoring that
warning, and were not about to reject the Coalition’s demands now,
whatever they were, without hearing the details. I was invited to
attend the meeting, as the subject was something to do with
inter-world commerce.

The rest of the Terran party, which included
the Consul and three or four other people I hadn’t met, was already
there when I walked in. The room was in twilight, dimmer switch
turned low, weak sun barely penetrating gauzy curtains. The ‘Graven
are photophobic, someone said with a smirk.