This Alien Shore

577 Pages·1999·1.69 MB·English

by  C. S. Friedman

SABOTAGE
The Guildsman pulled out a chair and settled into it; his full sleeves fell upon the
tabletop as he leaned forward, his posture stiff with tension. "One hundred and ninety E-
days ago, a Guild outpilot was badly injured while returning to safespace. Analysis of
his personal log shows there was a malfunction in his brainware at the moment of
transition. It lasted only seconds, but that was long enough. In that instant he believed
himself to be an alien creature, surrounded by beings whose brains didn't function like
his own. He believed that these beings had fed programs into his brainware which would
make it impossible for him to think clearly, and that they had surgically implanted a
mechanism in his arm which would feed drugs into his bloodstream, altering the very
essence of his identity. With only seconds in which to act, he did what he could to
disable the perceived mechanism, and then attempted to smash his skull open so that he
could tear out his wiring. Fortunately for him, the latter effort failed."
"Since his basic assumptions were correct," Masada said evenly, "I find it hard to
comprehend your objection to them."

Novels from
C. S. FRIEDMAN
Available from DAW Books
In Conquest Born
The Madness Season
This Alien Shore

The Coldfire Trilogy:
Black Sun Rising
When True Night Falls
Crown of Shadows

THE CRITICS RAVE ABOUT
THIS ALIEN SHORE
"C. S. Friedman borrows some big ideas from writers like Cordwainer Smith, Frank Herbert and
Samuel R. Delaney, and runs with them. Instead of stumbling under the burden, she succeeds in making
the ... material her own ... Friedman has created a potent metaphor for the toleration of diversity—an
ever-evolving society where "the genes of wild genius" are acknowledged as necessary for survival."
—The New York Times
"A wide-ranging, action packed space opera. This Alien Shore is guaranteed to entertain those who like
to be swept up in an adventure with lots of characters, dangers, and revelations."
—Science Fiction Chronicle
"Friedman keeps her tale moving at a vigorous pace that's boosted through an abundance of well-
chosen details ... it is likely to hold readers' interest tenaciously. The ending neither requires nor
precludes a sequel, so readers are left with some hope of again encountering Jamisia and the duel
between the Guild and Earth that backdrops her adventures."
—Publishers Weekly
"Once again Ms. Friedman offers us great richness in both concept and detail, ingeniously weaving
together two strong plotlines and piquant characters into a superior reading experience."
—Romantic Times

This Alien Shore

C. S. FRIEDMAN
DAW BOOKS, INC.
DONALD A. WOLLHEIM, FOUNDER
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
ELIZABETH R. WOLLHEIM
SHEILA E. GILBERT
PUBLISHERS
http://www.dawbooks.com

ISBN: 0886777992

Copyright © 1998 by C. S. Friedman.
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Michael Whelan.
For color prints of Michael Whelan's paintings, please contact:
Glass Onion Graphics
RO. Box 88
Brookfield, CT 06804
DAW Book Collectors No. 1096.
DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Putnam Inc.
Book designed by Stanley S. Drate/Folio Graphics Co., Inc.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware
that this book may have been stolen property and reported as
"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher. In such case neither
the author nor the publisher has received any payment
for this "stripped book."
First paperback printing, July 1999
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To have a concept for a great book is a truly exciting experience, and
one every author dreams of. To have a concept for B great book that
requires a lot of knowledge you don't have is a pretty overwhelming
experience, and one every author dreads. To have a concept for a
great book that requires a lot of knowledge you don't have, and then
to locate people who not only have that knowledge, but can
communicate it in plain English . . . and who don't mind spending
endless hours with you discussing 28th century hacking, or Inuit
linguistics, or whatever else can be fitted in between courses of
Chinese food or rounds of e-mail . . . well, that is what authors live
for.
So thanks first and foremost to Paul Suchinder Dhillon, without
whom this book simply would not exist. (Well, it might exist, but all
the computer passages would be really had, so no one would enjoy
it.) Thanks for the hours of technical talk and devious plot twists and
the virtual tours of hacker trails . . . couldn't have done it without
you.
Thanks also to Anthony C. Woodbury of the University of Texas,
whose outstanding knowledge of arctic languages finally enabled me
to find those few words I needed to really make this book come to
life. (Readers please note that the versions used here reflect many
centuries of linguistic corruption; if the spelling is wrong or the
meaning has been modified, that is artistic license on my part and
not an error on his!)
Thanks also to Cordwainer Smith for a few precious sparks of
inspiration which fans will no doubt recognize. He is one of the most
remarkable writers of the 20th century, and one of its most bizarre
imaginative artists. Yes, there is science fiction stranger than mine.
Go read it. And to Oliver Sachs and Temple Grandin and all those
other writers who struggle to reveal the alien landscapes inside the
human brain. If my fiction is ever half so gripping as their daily
truths, I will have accomplished something great.
Thanks to all those folks who kept me sane while this book was
being written (or as close to sane as I ever come), most especially
Paul Hoeffer, whose wonderful fan page kept my spirits up when
things were darkest. And to Senji and Lisa and Tina and Fonda and
Joan and Larry and Adam and most especially Chuck, whose
generosity of spirit and energetic labor helped me through those last
terrible weeks. There's nothing quite like trying to finish a book and
pack up a seven room house full of stuff at the same time to make
one truly crazed.
And thanks to Yann and Matt and Petra. They know why.
Thanks to Cheryl and Stan, for really knocking themselves out to get
this book printed on time. It's much appreciated, guys.
Most of all, thanks to Betsy Wollheim, for being the awesome editor-
goddess she is. Not only because she is brilliant and wise and
infinitely insightful, but because she didn't yell at me even once
when this was late. Now that is true greatness.

DEDICATION
This book is for my mother, Nancy Friedman, who died while it was
being written.
Sometimes the most impressive acts of courage are not dramatic
ones, such as we like to read about, but quieter, almost imperceptible
ones. Sometimes they are not even recognized as such until their
time has passed. My mother was a woman of such courage, and her
spirit affected all who knew her.
At age 20 her heart was damaged by disease, and she was told she
would not live past 30. She could have given up then and refused to
live, as many do, but instead she chose to go on as though she had no
deadline, as though Death did not dog her every step. Most of those
who knew her never knew that anything was wrong. She would have
considered it weakness to tell them.
My father was forbidden to marry her because of her illness. They
married anyway.
She was told that if she tried to have a child it would kill her. She
wanted a child, and so took the chance and had me. She lived. Later
she risked it again, and had my brother.
Those of you who have read my other dedications know that she
went with me to Hawaii to see the volcanoes. What you do not know
is that everywhere there were signs warning people away from
various places if they had heart problems, or respiratory distress. She
had both, and at that point was dying of them. Still she ignored the
signs. No mere heart disease was going to keep her from doing what
she had come halfway across the world to do.
She beat the odds and lived to age 67, always refusing to give up,
despite the fact that Death was only one step behind her. Even at the
end she told me that one of her greatest regrets was that her illness
had delayed my manuscript, because I had come to New York to take
care of her. Death might threaten her, but it had no right to disrupt
the lives of those she loved.
I wish she could share this book with me. I wish she could see that it
came out all right.
Fiction pales before such a life.
In a world where data is coin of the realm, and transmissions
are guarded by no better sentinels than man-made codes and
corruptible devices, there is no such thing as a secret.
DR. KIO MASADA,
"The Enemy Among Us": Keynote address to
the 121st Outworld Security Conference
(holocast from Guera)

EARTH ORBIT
SHIDO HABITAT
The VOICES woke her up.
For a moment Jamisia just lay in the darkness, neither dreaming nor
fully awake yet, listening. Whispers of sound tickled through her
brain, coalescing into words for an instant or two, then breaking up
again. Frightening words.
Danger.
Betrayal.
And one was almost a scream: Run!
Shaken, she sat up in bed. Her room in the Shido Habitat was
reassuringly familiar, filled with all the familiar relics of her teenage
years. Tickets from a concert over at Mitsui Habitat. Flowers—real
flowers!—from her coming out at Microtech's Grand Pavilion.
Homework chips piled up on one corner of the dresser, along with
the headset that would feed their contents into her brain. All of it—
her things, her life—familiar, comforting. It wasn't always that way.
Sometimes she awoke to find things on her dresser that didn't
(couldn't!) belong to her. Sometimes there were pieces of jewelry in
her slideaway that she knew she had never bought, so alien to her
taste that she could hardly imagine herself wearing them. Sometimes
there were worse things, frightening things, and she threw those in
the trash chute with shaking hands, wondering who had left them
there in the middle of the night, in the room she locked so carefully
before she went to bed. She kept waiting for the rightful owners to
say something about their stuff, to yell at her for having chuted it
without asking them . . . some kind of reaction, anything. But no one
ever yelled. No one ever said a word, and her tentative queries to the
habitat database yielded no explanation for the strange offerings, or
any hint of their purpose.
It wasn't like that today; at least today everything in the room was
really hers, and that should have been comforting. Only it wasn't.
The voices were still clamoring inside her head, even though the act
of waking up for good should have banished them. She couldn't
make out most of what they were saying, but the few words she did
understand—and the tone in which they were voiced—were
terrifying.
Danger!
Betrayed!
Run, Jamisia!
Her heart began to pound, triggering her wellseeker program; bright
words scrolled across the corner of her visual field, assessing her
emotional state in purely biological terms. ADRENALINE SURGE,
it informed her. PULSE RACING, B-PRESSURE ENTERING RED
ZONE, PHASE ONE MUSCULAR CONTRACTIONS NOTED.
ACTION?
Before she could answer it the door slid open, as quickly and silently
as if she had never locked it. A man moved into the room, and she
opened her mouth to scream—and then realized who it was and drew
in a deep, shaky breath instead.
"Grab some clothes," her tutor commanded, in a tone as unlike his
usual fatherly warmth as this night was unlike any other. "Take
anything you value, and do it fast." He looked back toward the door
as if to see if anyone was following him. By the nightlight's glow she
could see there was blood on his face. "We don't have much time."
"What's going on?" She could hear her own voice shaking as she
asked the question. But he only shook his head sharply, his
expression grim.
"Later." He wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing the blood,
then saw that she wasn't moving yet. "Do it!"
Trembling, she forced herself out of the bed and began to move to
the slideaway. The message in her visual field defaulted for lack of
response and blanked out, which was just as well; she couldn't think
clearly enough right now to give it instructions.
"What's happening?" she begged, as she gathered up handfuls of
clothing. Hi-G, lo-G, no-G: he hadn't said where they were going, so
she grabbed a few garments from each section of the slideaway and
stuffed them into her traveling bag. "Where are we going?"
"It's a raid." His voice, usually calm, was shaking now, and there was
a thin sheen of sweat on his face; it was a good bet his own