It had the whole idea. Like air in a tube, like water in a pipe, electricity flowed through cords, cables, wires. Ofelia had known children who found that hard to grasp, who had insisted that electricity could not flow, because wires were not hollow. And this creature had figured it out with no more than a few glances at the appliances and cords, at the elementary sketches of the teaching programs.
Ofelia felt cold all over. These were dangerous creatures; they had killed humans. And she was exposing them to human technology . . . at the rate this one was learning, it would not be long before they were building their own starships.
She could not stop them, either. Even before she had known they were there, they must have acquired enough information to be dangerous. By the time she realized they were learning too much, they had already learned it.
Her mind cycled through the reasoning, discussing with the old voice whether or not it was her fault. The old voice accused, as always; the new voice defended. The old voice frayed, audible at last as the separate strands that had formed it: her mother, her father, the primary teacher who had been incensed when she learned too fast, the secondary teacher who had been incensed when she turned down the scholarship; Humberto, Barto . . . even Rosara.
The new voice . . . she thought the new voice sounded like herself, but younger. But how could she be sure? It insisted she was not to blame. It went on to point out how exciting this was, what an opportunity.
Ofelia burst out laughing, and Bluecloak shied away. “Sorry,” Ofelia said, pulling her mouth back to its normal expression. Bluecloak could not know why she laughed; it might not know her laughter was laughter. Could she explain, even to herself, why she was laughing? Just that the internal argument seemed so silly, both the worry that she was responsible for endangering the whole human race, and the newer voice’s enthusiasm for learning about an alien race.
Whatever she learned would be of use to no one; she would be dead and if the others came back they would pay no attention to anything she tried to leave behind . . . assuming the creatures would not destroy it. For a moment she was shaken with grief and despair as sudden as the laughter. Death, that she had not feared, now stood at the end of the lane: darkness, and nothing beyond. She had not known she counted on leaving her memories as glosses on the official log—something that would survive her, whether anyone read it or not—until she realized that those additions might not survive.
With the grief, every ache in her body made itself known, as if her nerves transmuted emotion to physical signs. The heavy stutter of her heart, the sharp pain in her hip, in her knee, the burning beneath her ribs. Exhaustion dragged at her, and she fumbled behind her for one of the chairs that still stood around the wide kitchen table. She pulled it toward her, scraping its legs across the floor; Bluecloak stiffened and spread its arms a little away from its body. Ofelia sat heavily. It would pass; it always did. In a few minutes her breathing would ease; she would think of something pleasant, and help it along.
She glanced around the kitchen, out the garden door she’d opened. This was one of the gardens she had not kept up, beyond the odd shovelful of terraforming inoculant from the recycler. Runner beans with creamy flowers had gone rampant, sprawling over the whole space, reaching up with waving tendrils for the supports she had not supplied. The breeze set the tendrils waving even more wildly, and sent a gust of bean-scent through the open door.
Ofelia breathed it in. Yes. Always something to overcome the body’s momentary collapse, if you only gave it a chance. A color, a scent, a scrap of music. She waited until she was sure her heart had settled to a steady rhythm, then pushed her chair back and levered herself up. She really should shut the house up again before she left, but she was very tired, and if she was to make it to the power plant, she could not spare the energy.
When she turned to the front door, Bluecloak churred. Ofelia looked back. It had its hands on the garden door; it swung the door a few centimeters, then cocked its head. As clear as words, she thought. Do you want me to shut the door? Ofelia nodded and gestured with her hands, one the closing door and the other the wall it closed against. Bluecloak shut the door, and then, as she watched, the shutters. At the front door, it shut the door behind them, and fastened the latch.
She would have been surprised except that she had been surprised too many times that day already. She was old, she reminded herself. She didn’t have that many surprises left.
