The Garden - Melissa Scott [108]
Janeway shook her head, less in disbelief than in denial, and the light faded again. She looked back, and the shape that had called itself Adamant cocked its head at her.
"All this-all these aspects, and this place as well-is Kirse. Does that make it clear?"
"I think so," Janeway began, and wasn't sure if she was lying to herself.
Paris shook his head, hard. "No. I don't believe it. Grayrose-she was different, she was someone real."
"Kirse matches its buds to the people it deals with," Revek said, and his voice was for once without mockery. "It considers it polite to match your interests, your personality." He glanced at the Kirse. "It took me two years to get past that point."
"That's why you said you were limited," Janeway said, to Adamant. "During the attack, I mean." She frowned. "And the citadel, that's also-you?"
"That is so." Adamant-Kirse, now visibly heavy, filled with the potential of a thousand selves-dipped its head in stately acknowledgment.
Janeway glanced around, trying to imagine the situation. The citadel was a kind of shell, like some
sea-dwelling creature, but beyond that, the analogy failed her. The Kirse was many in one, like a multiple personality that was fully conscious of all its parts, and that could create bodies to match each of its personas.
"That's how Grayrose always knew what was happening," Paris said, his voice slow and soft, as though he was talking to himself. "She-you-you're all one." He paused. "Does that mean she isn't dead?"
"The part of my flesh that was her is dead," Kirse answered. "But I remember her." For a second, its flesh shimmered and shifted, formed a sketch of a winged female, and Janeway heard Paris's gasp of recognition before the shape disa ppeared again.
"Grayrose."
"So, Captain Janeway," Kirse continued, Adamant again in outward form. "Are your questions answered?"
"Not quite." Janeway looked from Kirse to Revek and back again. "Why did you conceal what you are?"
Kirse blinked, tipping its head to one side in silent question.
"You knew Revek, so you knew humans didn't understand what you are," Janeway went on. "You could've explained it, explained how you work, but you didn't. Why not?"
"Ah." Kirse looked away, its expression oddly embarrassed, and Janeway saw that Revek was smiling slightly.
"My fault, Captain," he said, and Kirse waved him to silence.
"My assumption, Thilo. You told me how it would be." It looked back at Janeway. "Thilo was distressed by me when he landed, once he knew what I was, and it took time to work out between us how it should be. I-there are few people who come to my world. Most
are animals, who come only to steal. When I saw you were of Thilo's species, and therefore all but certainly people, I was eager for company again. I did not wish to jeopardize what might be, and so I held my tongue and told Thilo to do the same." Kirse smiled slightly then. "I was mistaken."
"And the creatures, the ones in the garden?" Jane-way asked.
Kirse looked away again, sadness and something like guilt flickering across its face. "A-choice-now regretted, no longer made."
"What do you mean?" Janeway asked, when it became clear that the Kirse would not continue, and Revek cleared his throat.
"They're what's left of the people-sorry, not people, the animals-who have raided the planet. The Kirse used to use them as raw materials, a kind of biological machine. It used less metal than building something whole, and the Kirse is limited to a certain number of aspects."
"You turn prisoners into zombies?" Paris asked, and Revek gave him a look.
"The Kirse doesn't take prisoners. They were dead or dying when it found them."
"Not much of any argument in its favor," Janeway said. The idea was unpleasant-wrong no matter how you looked at it, and all the more upsetting for the fact that she could do nothing about it. The Prime Directive clearly applied, and, as she had said to Chakotay before, she had sworn to uphold that principle.
"That choice is no longer made," Kirse said again. "These