Crawling Between Heaven and Earth Read online

  Kratrina nodded. The medical personnel of the rest home, members of a stolid and empathetic but unimaginative humanoid race who called itself Kelter, were as obsessed with getting humans to fraternize under their benevolent eyes as they were about keeping humans away from each other when unsupervised.

  “I was naughty, otherwise we wouldn’t have met at all.” He winked. “They put me in the side garden and I walked around.”

  “Around?” she said. “But you’d have to cross the desert, I mean, the non-terraformed area between” She thought of the area she had glimpsed on the few occasions she had ventured beyond the edge of the ponderosa pines. What looked like an endless stretch of scorched red sand, and the trees beyond it, in the distance. It would take at least ten minutes to cross between a small garden and the next and the sun would be intense, yet here he was, his suit unruffled, his hair innocent of red sand.

  He bowed. “I had heard you were here. And the memory of your beauty made it worth to cross that island of hell.” He reached for her hand and kissed it again.

  She remained, with her hand pressed to her own lips, reliving the tingle of his touch, as he walked away amid the apple trees, until the glimmering, silk-clad shape vanished through the ponderosa pines.

  * * *

  “Well, dear,” the nurse said, smiling, as she opened the curtains of the room. “You sure are looking better.”

  Colloquial Glaish sounded funny in the lips of the humanoid, with her perfect ovoid of a face and the features that were no features at all: expressionless black eyes, slits for nostrils, a lipless mouth that no doubt did what mouths were supposed to do but no more.

  Kratrina turned her head away from that caricature of humanity, made all the more grotesque by the starched nurse’s uniform on the limber, featureless body. Those smooth, rope-like limbs protruding from the sleeves and beneath the skirt didn’t look at all like arms and legs, and could twist in any direction.

  “I mean,” the nurse said. “We can tell you’re feeling better. You’re getting up without the help of drugs and dressing by yourself. You do want to dress by yourself, right?”

  A secret smile on her lips, Kratrina said, “Oh, yes. Of course. And then I want to go outside.”

  She almost ran away from the nurse and into the shower where bio-mechanic appliances showered and groomed her. Back again in her room, she selected a long white cotton lace dress and slipped it on, under the approving eyes of the nurse.

  Breakfast was an ordeal gone through, as was the weighing and the clinical procedures of which these homes made a fetish.

  But then she was in the garden, threading her pink floss through the silk, working still on the same almond blossom she’d started more than a month ago.

  He came before she could complete three stitches.

  She stood up, let go of the embroidery frame, turned to meet him, to be enveloped in his powerful arms, his strong body. His lips came down to cover her own and stifled her little cry of excitement and pleasure.

  The nurses said she was better. She should hope so. She hadn’t felt so alive, so vibrant since those days in her home world, those days she couldn’t fully remember. After her honeymoon. Just as she and her new husband had settled in their home, started their life together.

  She shook her head and turned her mind and body to her friend, her lover.

  Later, after they’d made love, while their passion-warmed nude bodies lay side by side on the carefully groomed grass, he spun his dreams to her.

  One day, he said, they’d both be released. They’d marry and have their home in some pleasant world. Perhaps they’d have children.

  “Released?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, grey eyes laughing quietly. “Surely. My nurse says I’m improving. And I hear so are you….”

  “How do you hear of me?” she asked, because she’d never heard his name and had assumed that since they let him out to another garden, he must be in the west wing, under different supervisors, in a separate meal and recreation group.

  “I have my ways.” He smiled, a beguiling smile that lit up his perhaps-too-delicate features.

  She had to be contented with that, happy to let him have his secret, if it pleased him so.

  But from that day on, and through another week of passionate meetings in the garden, she thought about being released. She thought about it day and night. She’d never before heard that it could happen, that the gates to the rest home could open to lead anywhere but to another rest home. Maybe it was because her mental health had remained fragile for so long. Now, she thought about it, about the many worlds out there, about their pleasures opening to her again. The canals of Tiddar, the flower domes of Minnus. She remembered them from her honeymoon. She thought of sharing them with Ryv. She saw them strolling together everywhere through New Paris, visiting the hallowed precincts of old Earth. In her dreams they strolled together the ageless ruins of Rome, the carefully preserved remnants of twenty-first century London.

  Ryv must be wealthy. Very few humans were less than well to do, and none of those in these homes were less than fabulously rich. She thought their honeymoon would surpass her first, clouded marriage.

  * * *

  A week later, at her vanity table, she sat while the tentacles of the bio-mechanic groomer on the table top administered a facial. She inspected her smooth features. She’d been eighteen when they’d first sent her away to a rest home. Her twenty-eight-year-old features might be somewhat sharper, the outlines harder. But she retained her beautiful cheekbones, her straight nose. She’d still be an impressive wife to display at embassy parties in other worlds, for the admiration of natives. And perhaps she could resume the study of native languages that she’d started just before

  She tried to reach for it. The memory squirmed and twisted away from her touch, writhed and crawled on dark nebulous tentacles, away from her rational mind.

  Nothing left but a shiver down her back, and a feeling as of something cold and clammy that had dragged up the back of her neck.

  She gave her blonde hair a last tug, looked at the flawless make-up applied by the groomer, turned the groomer off, hurried down the broad stairs to the garden.

  However, all that day she waited in vain. She finished the almond blossom and several others, started on the brown of the embroidered tree trunk. She looked up at any small sound, always distracted, always waiting. Where could Ryv be?

  She told herself that he must have been detained, somehow. Perhaps he had a visitor. She remembered a visit from her own parents, almost a year ago.

  They couldn’t visit more often, of course. Her father was an experienced ambassador, that being the polite term for the men who administered alien worlds and wrung from them their wealth for the benefit of Earth. Of course, they also brought the natives culture, civilization and science, so that was all right.

  And her mother’s duties as a linguist and a hostess kept her fully occupied. Even when Kratrina had lived in their home, she hadn’t seen them more than twice a month. Not that she’d missed them. They’d made sure she was surrounded by a bevy of alien nurses and nannies, friends and teachers.

  The wind started up at three, as always, but Ryv didn’t come. She wondered if he was well, and for a frightening moment her throat tightened. She thought that perhaps he had been released before her, perhaps he had already forgotten her, perhaps

  The cold shiver traveled up her back.

  At nightfall, she folded her embroidery frame, went inside.

  That night, she tossed and turned, unable to sleep in her comfortable, temperature controlled bed. When she fell asleep, close to dawn, she dreamed she was a child in her parents’ home. She’d been left alone by the nannies and had gone in search of her mom. But, no matter how many doors she opened and how many rooms she searched, all she found was a likeness of Ryv, hastily drawn on the walls of a hall through which a red wind blew.

  “Your emotional readings are up a little, dear,” the nurse said, staring at
a screen. “Anything wrong? Any… memories?”

  Kratrina shook her head, hurried to the fresher.

  Emerging groomed, she chose a figure-molding red dress. Today Ryv would come. She thought how he would appreciate the dress, the joy he would take in undressing her. She thought of his muscular body, his perfect, flawless features and, clutching her embroidery frame, she danced her way to the garden.

  That day she finished the tree trunk and started on the other shadowy trunks behind it.

  That night she cried into her soft pillow and dreamed of something cold and dark, something whose touch left you slimed.

  “We should, perhaps, give you some relaxants?” the nurse asked the next morning.

  But Kratrina forced a smile on her tired features and told the nurse that it was nothing. Just something having to do with her cycle, something mysterious and female and human.

  If they gave her medication, she would have to stay inside. And then she wouldn’t see Ryv. There would be no chance of seeing Ryv.

  * * *

  Kratrina sat up with a cry, as the lights in her room came on full force.

  Her dream fled from the bright illumination. She’d dreamed of Ryv, but not Ryv. A Ryv that was something cold and dark, something alien that slithered upon its belly and left yellow slime in its trail. Something that came to you in the dark of night and—AndShe grasped for it, but couldn’t find what scared her so. She shook her head.

  She was letting herself feel this dream too much. After all, Ryv had only been absent for a week. Perhaps someone had caught him trying to walk between the gardens and he’d lost his outdoor privileges. Perhaps he had got worse and was being medicated. Perhaps he was trying to be good, attempting to defray attention from his activities, so he could continue seeing her.

  Her pulse slowed. The fine sweat that covered her body dried, in a shiver of coolness.

  Her link crackled. The hologram of the nurse’s face floated above it, “Lady Cryssa? Is anything wrong? Do you wish me to schedule an appointment with a doctor?”

  “No, no,” she said, hurriedly. “Everything is fine. Just fine. I’m sure.” An appointment with a doctor would mean drugs and drugs would mean no going outside and that would mean that perhaps just as Ryv managed to elude vigilance, he wouldn’t find her. She didn’t want to hurt him.

  The next morning in the garden, she’d just completed the third trunk and started on the green leaves of the clustered trees, when she heard his step behind her.

  Turning, she saw him, tall and muscular and perfect. She stood up, her heart beating fast, fast, fast, her breath coming in gasps, joy in seeing Ryv again joining with relief at his still being there, with curiosity about his absence, with pride at his still wanting her, all tied up with her dreams of release, her dreams of a future.

  They didn’t speak. Winged feet closed the distance between them.

  She nestled in his arms, her head on his strong chest, against the black silk tunic he wore, feeling his warm, warm flesh, hearing his heart beat.

  His mouth came down to meet hers.

  She realized she heard three heart beats, three much-too fast hearts, beneath the fabric against which her face rested. That fabric changed, shifted, its pleasant coolness becoming cold, cold, colder, till the cold burned her skin, the cold penetrated her lips through those sensuous lips that rested on them.

  Opening her eyes, she saw Ryv’s eyes fill with unholy mirth, and she knew that if she could only pull back from that cold, cold mouth that devoured her, she would hear him laughing.

  She pushed away with futile effort, against his powerful arms that suddenly appeared not to have any joints.

  Memory shattered walls carefully built over the several years of her therapy and she remembered. She remembered that this had happened before.

  Her heart thudding, her sight blurring, she remembered where she’d met Ryv. He was the young ambassador who’d come for a visit her father. His impeccable credentials and romantic appearance had won her heart, his obvious wealth had won her hand.

  After their honeymoon, they’d set up a home near her father’s house. Her father had promised to speed up Ryv’s appointment to his own world.

  But Ryv had disappeared for a month. And when he’d come back, he’d shifted in her welcoming arms. He’d become

  The boneless, slug-like creature holding her contorted, so that more of its skin touched her body and held her in an impossibly tight embrace.

  Yellow slime oozed from the grey skin, covering Kratrina’s dress, freezing her.

  She fought and screamed, as much against what held her as against the memories of its other appearances. She remembered the other homes, and how it had always managed to find her, and how it always came to this wrenching scene, and how this had happened before, so many times, so many other

  * * *

  Two hours later, when Kratrina didn’t come in, two of the alien caretakers came and found her unconscious.

  They knew, by the trail of yellowish slime around her, that their security had been breached. And they knew, too, upon interviewing Kratrina under deep hypnosis, that the creature had disappeared for a week. Long enough to lay its eggs. Somewhere.

  When they found it, beneath the loose sand outside the ponderosa pines, and killed it, they knew they were too late.

  Though Kratrina was kept sedated, but even that, they knew, was late. The creature’s body, autospied, confirmed their suspicions that Kratrina’s anguish during the week of the creature’s apparent disappearance had caused it to spawn and her surge of emotion at the obscene embrace of the sluglike alien, had allowed the larvae to become spaceborn and to hatch in the cold void.

  The administrator of the house took it upon himself to order the sponging of Kratrina’s memories to prevent any residual emotion from seeping out, to feed those creatures. Or rather, that creature, since they were born by gemiparition each a replica of its parent.

  The administrator also undertook to write to Kratrina’s father. He wrote on old fashioned paper and with pen, communication between planets still depending on such messages carried by spaceships.

  After an elaborate salutation, the Kelter elder who ran the home, gave the ambassador Cryssa bad news about his daughter, and proceeded to attempt to exculpate his establishment, “Though humans are undoubtedly the most advanced species in all the worlds,” he wrote with slavish abandonment. “Yet, the Ortroden seem to have latched onto humans—or a certain type of emotionally needy human—as the perfect host. And, once latched, it is hard to prevent another contact, by the descendants/clones, of the original Ortrode, that the emotional distress of the human subject has helped hatch. We, for all our wish to serve and help the human race, find ourselves unable to prevent the Ortroden approach. Being shape-changers, they always seem to get everywhere, somehow, and the best we can do is delay them. Their ability to make themselves invisible to surveillance equipment makes even that task arduous.

  “This one, having got its fangs into your eminence’s daughter, can, somehow, follow her everywhere and it is our opinion that only her death or human success in wiping out every Ortrode’s litter will release your daughter from her emotional torture-chamber.

  “Though we erased as much as possible of her memory, I fear that we were late and that the spawned larvae had already received enough emotional energy from her shock and horror, to survive to functional adulthood.

  “This Ortrode came in disguised as a nurse, to be exact the nurse who was supposed to be watching your daughter secretly during her carefully controlled moments of solitude.” The administrator sighed, looked ahead for a moment. “Nurses will, of course, be better examined from now on. However, it is too late for your daughter. For her security Lady Cryssa should not remain with us. She will be moved to the rest home in Drivas. Perhaps the icy climate will manage to keep the creature away as the heat didn’t. But it is to be feared that with their shape-shifting ability, the Ortroden will adapt.”

  * * *

&
nbsp; Kratrina sat in the little conservatory, shivering in her white fur cloak. Outside, a snow storm raged. She held her embroidery frame and worked on a detailed picture of a fairy-tale palace, done all in pastels and metallic thread.

  “Lady, do you wish me to bring you a warm drink?” someone asked, just behind and to the side of her.

  She turned. He didn’t look like any of the male patients she’d met in this place.

  Crawling Between Heaven and Earth

  This story takes place in the time line of my Shakespearean novels entitled (as of this writing at least) Ill Met By Moonlight (published October 2001), and (upcoming) All Night Awake and Any Man So Daring. It would happen between the second and third novel. The fact that Shakespeare had a much younger brother who, emulating him, went to London to try to be an actor was too interesting a detail to pass up. One has to wonder if he had the same talent and what would have happened if he’d got to use it.

  The winter of 1602 lay like cold death upon London, turning the great Thames into a frozen blue vein and putting waxen whiteness on the facades of the five-storied buildings.

  St. Paul’s yard, that great market of books and pamphlets, lay hushed under the great frost, its few customers hurried and harried, exchanging their few coins for the latest play by Master William Shakespeare, that sweet swan of the Avon, or the latest moral excoriation by puritan preachers.

  Within St. Paul’s Cathedral, the heart of London, less temple than meeting place and horse market and foreign currency exchange, street urchins urinated on the stone floor for to make it slick with ice and to watch the burgesses and bawds and dandies slip and fall.

  Further down near the river, in the new, hastily built and dingy Liberty of the Clink, in the Theater, a wooden amphitheater open to the elements, the King’s men rehearsed.

  They wore their somber, black or brown everyday suits and cloaks.