Asimov's SF, January 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The aging officer stared at him. “You shouldn't make light of such things. I'm surprised that you haven't seen one of the enemy, as much as you travel. Do you have word, official of course, on the progress of the war?”

  Jacob had the uneasy feeling that the man might keep him quarantined and under scan if he didn't provide a satisfactory answer. He wished he had Anders's ability at complete fabrication. His ear buzzed. The war ebbs and flows, but remains constant. The empire continues to maintain. Ashamed of himself, Jacob repeated command's answer word for word.

  “Very well then.” The officer motioned and Jacob was propelled forward up the ramp. The man's hand thrust forward, gripping his arm. “Welcome to our humble landing. Anya—Officer Bolduan—is preparing the statistical feed. Any specific observations you'd like to make?”

  “Not really, as I was explaining to the other officer I'm only here two sleeps.”

  “Very well. You do realize your sleep regulation isn't enforced here. If you'd like to continue your accustomed sleep cycle you can return to your vessel at the appropriate intervals—”

  “I'd like to give it a try.”

  “Certainly. Some have a difficult time transitioning.” The officer looked down suddenly, as if intent on something on the instrument panel. “Do you have messages to deliver?” he asked without looking up.

  Buzz. 432 undelivered regulatory messages. Jacob shook his head in annoyance. “There are a few, probably obsolete, regulatory messages.”

  The officer laughed to himself. “Well, we hardly need more of those.” He wetted his lips. “Anything for specific persons?”

  Buzz. Specific name is required for an adequate search. Misdirects now at over 62% due to addressing and time-delimiting malfunctions.

  “I'm not sure. I will certainly—”

  “My father is retiring tomorrow,” Anya spoke up, entering from the hall. “He's been waiting for his letter from the emperor.”

  * * * *

  They skittered across the dull-sealed surface of the world in a shallow vehicle looking somewhat like a huge sandal. An old geo-magnetic skimmer, as far as he could tell, although it had a home-made, jerry-built feel. Regulation replacement parts were unheard of out here (or in most of the empire, if the full truth were known). Now and then they'd pass over a deteriorated portion of the coating and the skimmer would fishtail with a twittering sound.

  “It's really more stable than it seems.” She was obviously amused byhis discomfort. “I'm sorry about my father back there.”

  “He didn't do anything wrong. You embarrassed him.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I'm afraid I did. It's just that he's been waiting for that stupid letter for so long, and I knew he'd never ask about it directly.”

  “Well, yes, I surmised that. The way he began immediately apologizing for your uniform, and his, obviously to change the subject. ‘My uniform is currently twenty-two points out of color phase. Officer Anya Bolduan's is currently thirty-six points out of color phase.'”

  “The sad thing is he tracks those figures every day, and at the end of the month he graphs the progress. He worries about that sort of thing. It's like he expects my uniform will turn transparent in another year.”

  Jacob thought he might actually blush. The notion filled him with self-loathing. He couldn't look at her. “They're old uniforms. It can't be helped. I don't suppose it even matters.”

  “It matters very much to my father. And he only has another day for it to matter. So, is there a letter, Crewman Reporter Jacob Westman? Do you know anything, or is it all in that thing in your ear?”

  She mightnot have seen his kind before, but she read manuals. “Patience, please. My ear is attempting to tell me what it knows.”

  Letters from the emperor were given at one time to higher officers, including provisional officers in charge of outposts and settlements, upon the occasion of their retirement. The practice has been largely discontinued, declining rapidly as chains of command have become increasingly ambivalent. Rarely did such letters receive the emperor's personal attention. Last recorded incident of such a letter ... records here are incomplete.

  “He knew the emperor at one time,” she said. “They were friends. He served with him when they were both young. I think that's why he has his hopes so high.”

  Monitoring this statement due to its high probability of fabrication. Positing truthfulness, such a relationship might possibly make a difference. Is it a friendship? Please note the lower case “f.” Probabilities difficult to determine, high inaccuracy due to questions as to whether a singular figure known as the “emperor” in fact now exists. Parameters classified.

  “Does your ear need more time?”

  “Apparently. I'm sorry.”

  “So how does it feel, having that voice in your head all the time? I can't manage even the low volume of communications we deal with on Joy. Don't tell my father, but sometimes I unplug.”

  “Truthfully it becomes annoying at times. But it is,” he stopped, watched her eyes, “company.”

  She nodded. “It does get lonely here, you know. Even after all this time, the older staff will be talking to you, and it feels like a genuine conversation, then suddenly they're treating you like you were a Stranger.”

  “From my observations in these outlying posts, that isn't unusual behavior.”

  “So are they still out there?”

  ...speculations here are ill-advised...

  “Honestly, I really have no idea. Possibly.”

  “Is the emperor even still alive? We never hear anything out here.”

  ...lack of complete information is no excuse for misleading statements by crewmembers acting in their official capacity...

  “I'm afraid I can't help you there, either. Some things work, I know that. We receive communications, including new regulations and orders. Although infrequently, supply ships arrive at destinations.” Com buzzed his ear aggressively, but he ignored it. “Other military ships are encountered. The empire runs, although its borders apparently continue to change. And from my observation, most of the settlements appear to be running themselves. Maybe there's still an emperor, maybe there's a committee. People talk about the Strangers, but no one I know has ever seen one. Some people say there are no Strangers, and no emperor either.”

  “Well, there was an emperor. My father knew him. He says in the old days before he took command the emperor was expected to serve just like everyone else.”

  “He must have some interesting stories from that time.”

  The world's surface coating stopped abruptly, and the skimmer almost as quickly. The unsettled portion of Joy rolled out in front of them, its multicolored layers of stone swirling into cones, peaks, and shallow valleys. The late-afternoon light emphasized its strangeness, and its random highlighting of geologic features gave the landscape an appearance of constant movement.

  “Very pretty,” he said, feeling inadequate to the task of responding to such an exotic vision.

  “Yes, but I'm afraid that ends the tour. Bad enough I go out there by myself without orders, but if you were to be injured—you can imagine, I'm sure. But it has such beauty and strangeness—I'm not sure I could handle so much Joy without it.” She laughed. “That was a silly thing to say, I guess.”

  He wanted to tell her how much he enjoyed hearing her laughter, but of course did not. “You stay because of your father?”

  “He retires tomorrow and I'm supposed to take over. Maybe then we can stretch things a bit, and I can find excuses to go out there more. Besides, he needs me for now. There are so many things he's unsure of.”

  “I can't promise any particular results, but I'll keep searching for some sort of message, at least some official recognition of his retirement.”

  “He knew the emperor, I'm sure of it. My father isn't the sort of person to fabricate things.”

  ...fabrication is always a potential hazard when inadequate information is present...

  “I believe you.”
<
br />   “But he doesn't have any stories. His memory stops after meeting the emperor, going out on those first tentative incursions. At some point his entire platoon came back with the emperor, and the powers that be must have suspected a Stranger was among them, because they were all examined, if that's even an adequate word for it. He's lost most of his memories of that period, and although his official record provides dates and locations, details are sparse.”

  ...possibilities of message retrievalusing insufficient search parameters are questionable...

  “I hope a message comes through. I'll return to the ship, spend the rest of the day in queries.”

  “Even if you can't find anything, please come to the ceremony tomorrow? Having someone from outside in attendance, in official capacity or not—”

  “Of course. Of course. I'll be there,” he said, even though the idea of standing within a gathering of people he did not know made him cringe.

  * * * *

  That evening he sat alone in the recording room in the hours before enforced sleep, as he would sit alone before many sleeps until the powers above (and there were thousands of layers, he thought, of powers above) chose someone to replace Anders. As he had sat alone time after time when Anders had still been alive and only a few meters away, simply another stranger listening for voices in the dark, recording what those voices had to say. Tonight there were a thousand such voices, most chronicling the minutiae of rulings and orders, specifications and principles, some calling out for contact from worlds not visited in generations, some pleading for assistance, remuneration, or the simple return of a greeting, and a few hesitant inquiries concerning Strangers, and fewer still wondering aloud if Strangers had at last taken over all that could be seen, heard, or imagined. The emperor himself, however, was conspicuously silent, as he had been silent, and invisible, all of Jacob's life. The possibility the sought-after letter might miraculously arrive seemed almost infinitely remote.

  “Continue to parse and deliver all incoming and previously uncategorized communications,” Jacob said aloud. “But please intersperse with entries from the diaries of Anders Nils.”

  COMmand remained silent, as it had all evening, but swiftly complied.

  The hall where the ceremony was held was small, but so was the attendance. Official banners had been hung, each one a few points off in color as far as Jacob could determine, lending a not-entirely unpleasant but unmistakable disharmony to the proceedings.

  The walls cycled images of the retiring colonel at various points in his career, but there were numerous, obvious gaps. A few of the images portrayed groups of officers and enlisted. Jacob wondered if any of the blurred, shadowed faces was that of their emperor.

  People stood up one at a time and offered chronicles of their experiences serving with the colonel. Some talked about his skills as an administrator, a supervisor. One or two said he was a visionary, but provided no evidence for this claim. A man appearing older than the colonel told a semi-humorous story of their time serving together in the campaigns, but stopped abruptly and sat down. Jacob then realized the man must have also been part of the group suffering the examination which had scattered the colonel's memories.

  Anya stood and told everyone what a good father he had been. She talked about his patience, and how much she respected him. When she sat down Jacob saw her warily eyeing the thin sheet of film Jacob held in his shaking hand.

  “Is there anyone else?” a small man in a faded clerk's uniform asked.

  Jacob stood and unsteadily made his way to the front of the room. When he turned around he looked for someone to focus on. He discovered he couldn't begin to look at the colonel, but watching Anya's face as he read was pleasant and barely possible. He held the sheet tightly to minimize the shaking.

  “The vast spaces between us are filled with messages. In these scattered times few seem to find their intended destinations, or satisfy us with the things we've always wanted to hear. But sometimes you can stitch together a voice here, a voice there, until some clarity of feeling emerges. I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of what I am about to read—it is difficult to verify the messages that come to us out of the vast unknown. But I intuit its general true feeling.

  “To Colonel William Bolduan, officer in custody of Joy, from Joseph, once acquaintance and always friend, emperor of all he loves, hates, or imagines, on the occasion of the colonel's retirement from a lifetime of most meritorious service.

  “Now, you may not remember because of measures taken both terrible and necessary, but when I hungered so long for sustenance, and courage, you made us a meal out of the wings of some glorious bird whose name was unfamiliar to all, whose face bore a map of the hard world we'd traveled, and while we ate, our eyes became like white jewels, and we paid each other out of laughter and song. For us there were no soldiers or emperors, no desperate orders or misguided honor to separate us, and we swore to each other the peace that comes with age. I would stand by you as your children were married, and we would tolerate no serious disagreement, and think nothing of the worlds that separated us, but praise the fineness of difference.

  “When we woke I could see your embarrassment, the shame you felt for being so familiar, and you would not hear when I explained what all emperors know, that sometimes the heart must be lubricated if any truth is to be told.

  “Still, we were no strangers to adventure. We were not strangers in our hearts. Without regret I followed you into the fires at Weilung, where the breath of the dying fliers erased our uniforms and then our hair. In agony you carried me to the fountains of that fading world, where those beautiful ghosts regretted our injuries, and we lay swaddled in their manes as the battles raged without us, until finally I could open my eyes without screaming, and you had that ship waiting, and past the eighty-two falls of those unfortunate worlds you transported me, until the rest of the fleet arrived, and there began our first separation.

  “And you should know my people thought it improper. They called themselves my people but in truth I was irretrievably theirs. Some beings must remain separate, they told me, and a friendship of equals is a lie we tell children. So I had to content myself with reports of your exploits, your rescue mission between the two green seas, the time you brought the children (those oh-so-gullible children!) out of the mines at Debel ‘Schian, and your long voyage out of the Cheylen clouds.

  “If you could only remember our next meeting at the Hejen Temples! How broken I was over those jokes you told! I painted my cheeks like a little girl, and danced until you were too hoarse to sing. Later, when you were afraid your honor could not bear such frivolous and insane behavior, I somehow convinced you that sometimes insanity is the only reasonable response to atrocity, and the death of everything, and long voyages home, alone in the dark.

  “But all this ends. And even I with such a grand, fully augmented memory, cannot remember the last time we laughed together, anymore than you, my friend. It all has to end. And strangeness comes, and there is no science deep enough to explicate the secrets of the heart. An empire separates us, but still I think of you.

  “Signed Joseph, your emperor.”

  * * * *

  Jacob returned immediately to his ship. His dialogue with command continued in the recording room, even as the vessel departed that atmosphere, trailing unanswered messages from the occupants of Joy.

  “This is a continuation of queries related to the death of Anders Nils, crewman reporter third. Are you prepared to answer these queries?”

  “Ask me anything. You may also repeat questions from our first session. Obviously, I have nothing better to do.”

  “Before proceeding to those queries we would like to ask you some possibly related questions concerning your stay on 960G4-32.”

  “Yes, I imagine you do.”

  “The letter you read from the Emperor Joseph—that was a complete fabrication, was it not?”

  “Yes, a complete fabrication.”

  “The letter was fabricated from fa
brications previously entered by Anders Nils in his diaries, concerning imaginary adventures you and he experienced while visiting a variety of worlds.”

  “Yes, that was the principal source—Ander's imaginary adventures and the imaginary friendship he invented for us. But I filled it in with a few details from the colonel's service record, some stray descriptive passages from this soup of transmissions I have travelled in these past nine years. The style came out of Li Po's Exile's Letter. Have you read it?”

  “The poem is in the database.”

  “I admit I've hardly done it justice.”

  “So you admit the emperor's letter was a lie?”

  Jacob waited, thinking, then said, “It is not a lie. It is an accurate depiction of the way Anders Nils felt about me, felt about the loneliness of the voyage. It is an accurate depiction of his yearnings. I also believe it is an accurate depiction of Colonel Bolduan's yearnings, and perhaps those of our maybe-living, maybe-not emperor as well. It is certainly an accurate depiction of my own feelings.”

  “But the events you've narrated, events which were supposedly experienced by Colonel Bolduan, are fictional.”

  “Those events, those memories are gone forever. They were taken from the colonel. If the colonel had lost a leg in combat, the service would have provided him with a prosthetic. The events I have narrated in the emperor's letter are a prosthetic for what he has lost.”

  “Do you know why Anders would commit suicide?”

  “I cannot be sure. I will never be sure. But I believe the stories he had made up, or fabricated, to use your word, had ceased to work for him. He must have been terribly, terribly lonely.”

  “He should have spoken to you. He could have asked us for assistance.”

  “Some people are unable to ask, or tell. People do what they can do.”

  “Why did you not know Anders was thinking of committing suicide?”

  “Because I failed at the one thing I have been so thoroughly trained to do. I failed to listen.”

  And there ended the interview. Jacob returned to his long nights listening, alone, waiting for Anders's replacement, wondering if there would even be a replacement. Now and then he would listen to Anders's diaries. Now and then he would make up diary entries of his own.