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  PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF PAMELA SARGENT

  “Sargent is a sensitive writer of characterization rather than cosmic gimmickry.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “One of the genre’s greatest writers.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Pamela Sargent is an explorer, an innovator. She’s always a few years ahead of the pack.”

  —David Brin, award-winning author of the Uplift Saga

  “Over the years, I’ve come to expect a great deal from Pamela Sargent. Her worlds are deeply and thoroughly imagined.”

  —Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game

  “Pamela Sargent’s cool, incisive eye is as sharp at long range, visionary tales as it is when inspecting our foreground future. She’s one of our best.”

  —Gregory Benford, astrophysicist and author of Foundation’s Fear

  “If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and as a short story writer. … She is one of the best.”

  —Michael Moorcock, author of Elric of Melniboné

  “[Sargent is] a consummate professional [who] exhibits an unswerving consistency of craft.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  Alien Child

  “An excellent piece of work—the development of the mystery … is well done. Ms. Sargent’s work … is always of interest and this book adds to her stature as a writer.”

  —Andre Norton, author of the Solar Queen series

  “Count on Pamela Sargent to write a science fiction novel that is both entertaining and true to human emotion. I wish I had had this book when I was a teen because all the loneliness, all the alienation, all the apartness I felt from my family would have made more sense.”

  —Jane Yolen, author of The Devil’s Arithmetic and Cards of Grief

  “This story of Nita, a girl growing up in an insulated environment where she gradually comes to realize that she might be the last person left on Earth, has conflict and suspense from the beginning. … Vividly depicted.”

  —School Library Journal

  “This finely crafted work never falters with false resolution. … An honest and compelling examination of ‘What if …?’”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An engaging narrative in Sargent’s capable hands. An essence of otherworldliness is present in the gentle guardians, and since Sven and Nita are raised solely by the two aliens, there is a freshness in their perceptions of their own species. … Clearly and simply presented—thoughtful—a worthy addition to any SF collection.”

  —Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA)

  “Sargent does not lower her standards when she writes young adult fiction. Like the best of young adult writers, her artistic standards remain as high as ever, while her standards of clarity and concision actually rise. … The intelligence and resourcefulness she showed in The Shore of Women are undiminished in Alien Child.”

  —Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game

  “Thoughtful, serious, and written without condescension, the novel contains all of the qualities we have come to expect from this author.”

  —Science Fiction Chronicle

  The Golden Space

  “Pamela Sargent deals with big themes—genetic engineering, immortality, the ultimate fate of humanity—but she deals with them in the context of individual human lives. The Golden Space reminds me of Olaf Stapledon in the breadth of its vision, and of Kate Wilhelm in its ability to make characters, even humans in the strangest forms, seem like real people.”

  —James Gunn, writer and director of the film Guardians of the Galaxy

  “Clearly, The Golden Space is a major intellectual achievement of SF literature. It will not be possible for any honest story of immortality hereafter to ignore it; it is a landmark.”

  —The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “Brilliantly handled—all of us have got to hand an accolade to the author.”

  —A. E. van Vogt, author of The World of Null-A

  “Sargent writes well, the many ideas are fresh, and their handling is intelligent to the extreme.”

  —Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “What next, after universal immortality becomes a fact of life? Pamela Sargent’s brilliant book, The Golden Space, shatters the imaginative barrier that has held stories about immortality to a simplistic pasticcio of boredom, degeneration, and suicide.”

  —The Seattle Times

  The Mountain Cage

  “[Sargent] is one of our field’s true virtuosos, and in The Mountain Cage: and Other Stories she gives us thirteen stunning performances, a valuable addition to a repertoire that I hope will keep on growing.”

  —James Morrow, author of Only Begotten Daughter

  The Shore of Women

  “That rare creature, a perfect book.”

  —Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game

  “A cautionary tale, well-written, with excellent characterization, a fine love story, as well as much food for thought … An elegant science fiction novel.”

  —Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern series

  “Pamela Sargent gives meticulous attention to a believable scenario. … A captivating tale both from the aspect of the lessons that the author tries to impart and from the skills she has used to tell it.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “How many perfect science fiction novels have I read? Not many. There are at most three or four such works in a decade. Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women is one of the few perfect novels of the 1980s. … Her story of a woman exiled from a safe high-tech city of women, the man ordered by the gods to kill her, and their search for a place of safety, is powerful, beautiful, and true.”

  —The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “A compelling and emotionally involving novel.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “I applaud Ms. Sargent’s ambition and admire the way she has unflinchingly pursued the logic of her vision.”

  —The New York Times

  Ruler of the Sky

  “This formidably researched and exquisitely written novel is surely destined to be known hereafter as the definitive history of the life and times and conquests of Genghis, mightiest of Khans.”

  —Gary Jennings, bestselling author of Aztec

  “Scholarly without ever seeming pedantic, the book is fascinating from cover to cover and does admirable justice to a man who might very well be called history’s single most important character.”

  —Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, anthropologist and author of Reindeer Moon

  Child of Venus

  “Masterful … as in previous books, Sargent brings her world to life with sympathetic characters and crisp concise language.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Alien Child

  Pamela Sargent

  To Ian Watson

  1

  Nita’s earliest memory was of the day she had nearly drowned in the pool.

  She was toddling down the wide, lighted hall of her home, but her short legs could not keep pace with her guardian’s long strides. Llipel suddenly retracted her claws, picked Nita up as the door to the garden slid open, and carried her outside.

  Nita pulled at the fur on Llipel’s chest. “Put me down,” she said.

  “But I have often carried you here,” Llipel replied.

  “Please put me down. I’m too big to be carried now.”

  “It is true that you are larger,” her guardi
an said. “You grow heavier for me to lift.” She lowered Nita to the ground. “Perhaps I should not carry you again.”

  Llipel had set her down on the tiles that surrounded the pool, an area they usually avoided. Nita gazed at the water and wondered again why it had been collected here. Could it be for bathing? But there were rooms inside where she could wash. She moved closer to the edge, leaned over, lost her balance, then suddenly tumbled forward.

  She hit with a splash, cried out as she was submerged, then choked as she gulped warm water. Too frightened to scream, she struggled to stay afloat. Llipel’s clawed feet scratched at the tiles as she ran forward and halted to wave her arms helplessly. Nita opened her mouth and swallowed more water; she gasped as she flailed around with her arms.

  Llipel was making a high-pitched mewling sound; she jumped back as water splashed against her furry legs. Nita knew then that her guardian might not be able to get close enough to pull her out. Her arm slapped against a surface; she managed to grab the side of the pool.

  Her fear left her; she was safe now. She kicked with her legs and started to laugh.

  “Come out,” Llipel said in her high voice. Nita brought down one arm, sending more water toward her guardian; Llipel shuddered as she shook the droplets from her legs. Llipel hated water; she did not wash as Nita did, but instead groomed her fur with her claws. Nita let go for a moment and found that she could keep her head above water if she moved her arms vigorously and kicked with her legs. The warmth was soothing; she had nothing to fear. She smiled to herself as she clung to the side of the pool; this was something she had discovered for herself, without her guardian’s help.

  “Come out of the water now.” Llipel tugged at her facial fur with her hands, clearly worried. Nita reluctantly made her way toward the ladder in the nearest corner and climbed out.

  Llipel stepped back. Nita shook the water from herself and then wrung out her long black hair. “You must use care,” Llipel said; she was no longer pulling at her fur, and her dark eyes seemed calmer. “What do you feel now, Nita?” Llipel held out one arm, then touched her furry chest with her hand, as she usually did when she was asking Nita a question.

  “I was scared at first,” Nita answered. “But it’s warm, and it felt good, and I got out by myself. I liked it.”

  “You liked it.” Llipel’s large black eyes widened, showing her surprise. “You like to feel this water around you?”

  “Yes. I wash inside, don’t I?”

  Llipel put her hands together, then drew them apart; she was saying, with this gesture, that this was not the same thing as bathing. “You like to move in this water. Perhaps your kind—” The tall, furred creature paused. “You do not enter that water now unless I am near. I do not want harm for you. You will say this.”

  Nita pouted. “All right.”

  “Say it.” Llipel often asked Nita to state what she would or would not do, as though speaking the words would somehow bind her.

  Nita sighed. “I won’t go into the pool unless you’re with me.”

  Llipel smoothed the golden fur on her chest, a sign that she was satisfied with the answer. “Remember what you say now, Nita. Forget, and you will have a time without this garden.”

  “But you can’t pull me out even when you’re here. You hate water.” Nita giggled. “If you fell in, I’d have to save you.” Her guardian folded her long, thin arms; she did not seem amused.

  The gardener, one of the squat, domed machines that took care of the garden, was tending a small flower bed, pulling out weeds with its clawed metal limbs. Another machine, with a wide scoop and blade, clipped the grass. Nita had often watched the two robots at their work, wishing that she could float over the ground as they did when they were moving.

  She ran toward the mower and halted in front of it. The robot stopped, then moved to her right. She stepped to one side, blocking the machine again; the mower floated backward, then moved to her left.

  “What are you doing?” Llipel asked. “It cannot do its work if you are in its way.”

  “I’m just playing.”

  “It is not a thing for play.”

  Nita made a face at the mower, then looked around for the gardener. That robot was now floating along a path that led to the west wing; she wondered if it was going to get itself repaired. Even though she had never seen it, she knew that there was a room in the west wing where another machine tended to the robots. She began to follow the gardener. Llipel had never allowed her to enter the west wing, and the doors leading into it never opened while Nita was in the garden. Perhaps one door would open this time, allowing her to follow the robot inside and meet the one who lived in the west wing’s rooms.

  Llare was there, another being like Llipel. But Llipel never visited her companion; Nita wondered why. She glanced at the windows, wishing that she could see through them from this side, but they had mirrored surfaces like the windows in the east wing, where she lived with Llipel; she could see out of them, but could not look through them when she was in the garden.

  The gardener settled down on the path, a few paces from the door. Nita hurried to its side. She had never seen Llare here; was Llipel’s companion afraid of the outdoors? Llare would be safe enough in the garden, which was completely enclosed. In addition to the east and west wings, hallways leading to a high tower bordered the garden on the south side. To the north, there was a long, metallic wall without windows; behind that wall lay the place Llipel called the cold room.

  A furred hand suddenly gripped her shoulder. “Where do you go now?” Llipel asked.

  “Why can’t I see the west wing? You never let me.”

  “You cannot go there. It is Llare’s place. We have another place.”

  “But why can’t I see it?”

  “It is not time. You are not authorized, and these doors do not open to you.” Llipel touched the silver rectangle she wore on a chain around her neck; this was her authorization. The rectangle allowed Nita’s guardian to pass through any door, to go where she liked. She could order certain doors not to open to Nita if she misbehaved, or command the screens and voices inside not to discuss certain matters with her. It did not seem fair that Llipel was authorized, while Nita wasn’t.

  “You can open the door for me,” Nita said.

  “That is Llare’s place. It is not a time for togetherness. Come away now.”

  Nita followed her guardian back to the pool. She would have to obey, or Llipel might make her go inside.

  Llipel had taken care of her for as long as Nita could remember. But she was beginning to realize that her guardian did not see things in quite the way Nita did. Llipel said that there was a time for certain questions and answers, while Nita seemed to have questions all the time.

  She sat down near the edge of the pool, lowered her feet into the water, then glanced back at Llipel. Her guardian seemed curious enough about some matters; Llipel was always questioning the screens. Nita kept wondering what lay outside, beyond her home, but whenever she asked Llipel about it, she was always told that there would be time enough to learn about that. Perhaps when she was older, she would become more like Llipel and would be able to view the world as she did.

  Nita turned and gazed longingly toward the west wing, then looked away.

  2

  Nita’s home was called the Kwalung-Ibarra Institute. The faces she saw on the screens and the voices she heard when the faces moved their mouths usually referred to her home only as “the Institute,” although occasionally they used the longer term. The faces would answer some questions if she asked them clearly, but when she first asked about kwalungs and ibarras, the face staring out at her seemed puzzled.

  “Kwalung,” she said, wondering if she was saying the word properly. She had noticed by then that Llipel sometimes did not pronounce words in quite the way the faces did. Nita could usually repeat the words she heard with little trouble, while Llipel often struggled with unfamiliar sounds. That might be because Llipel’s mouth was small and her te
eth sharp and pointed; her words usually had a slurred, whistling sound. She often relied on a few gestures Nita had learned to interpret in order to make her speech more easily understood.

  “Ibarra,” Nita continued. “What’s a kwalung? What is an ibarra?”

  “I see,” the face on the small screen above her answered. “You mean who are Kwalung and Ibarra. I’ll show them to you.”

  Nita had climbed up on a chair near the screen in order to see it more clearly; she craned her neck as other images appeared. Kwalung turned out to be a face with long, straight, black hair and almond-shaped brown eyes, while Ibarra was a fiercer face with heavy brows and dark hair. “The woman is Dr. Kwalung Chun, and the man is Dr. Ferdinand Ibarra. They founded the Institute.”

  “I knew that,” Llipel said behind her. “You did not have to ask the screen.”

  Nita had learned earlier from the faces what a man was and what a woman was. She had never seen very much of their bodies, which were hidden by coverings of various colors, but had been shown some anatomical images. One referred to a man as “he” and to a woman as “she.” Nita, apparently, was a “she,” even though her body lacked the protuberances she had noticed on the chests of the women. She had always thought of Llipel as a “she,” perhaps because her high, soft voice resembled those of the female faces; now she wondered.

  She climbed down from the chair and walked over to the table on which Llipel was sitting. Her guardian’s chest was flat; her long arms and legs seemed almost boneless and were thinner than Nita’s limbs. Her body was covered by short golden fur; her six-fingered hands bore tiny claws instead of nails, as did her toes. Her large black eyes were the most prominent feature on her round furry face.

  “What are you?” Nita asked.

  Llipel motioned with one hand. “I do not understand.”