Isaac Asimov's SF-Lite

by Gardner R. Dozois

  “That’s cleverly put,” I said, “but it’s dead wrong.”

  The waiter brought our lunches, and we stopped talking as he put them in front of us. It seemed like the anticipatory silence of three very hungry people, but was in fact the polite silence of three people who have been brought up not to argue in front of disinterested bystanders. As soon as he left, we resumed the discussion.

  “I mean it,” David said. “The dubious survival benefits of management aside, bioengineering is a waste of effort. Harry Winthrop, for instance, doesn’t need B-E at all. Here he is, fresh out of business school, audibly buzzing with lust for a high-level management position. Basically he’s just marking time until a presidency opens up somewhere. And what gives him the edge over you is his youth and inexperience, not some specialized primate adaptation.”

  “Well,” I said with some asperity, “he’s not constrained by a knowledge of what’s failed in the past, that’s for sure. But saying that doesn’t solve my problem, David. Harry’s signed up. I’ve signed up. The changes are under way and I don’t have any choice.”

  I squeezed a huge glob of honey into my tea from a plastic bottle shaped like a teddy bear. I took a sip of the tea; it was minty and very sweet. “And now I’m turning into the wrong kind of insect. It’s ruined my ability to deal with Product Marketing.”

  “Oh, give it a rest!” said Greg suddenly. “This is so boring. I don’t want to hear any more about corporate hugger-mugger. Let’s talk about something that’s fun.”

  I had had enough of Greg’s lepidopterate lack of concentration. “Something that’s fun? I’ve invested all my time and most of my genetic material in this job. This is all the goddamn fun there is.”

  The honeyed tea made me feel hot. My stomach itched—I wondered if I was having an allergic reaction. I scratched, and not discreetly. My hand came out from under my shirt full of little waxy scales. What the hell was going on under there? I tasted one of the scales; it was wax all right. Worker bee changes? I couldn’t help myself—I stuffed the wax into my mouth.

  David was busying himself with his alfalfa sprouts, but Greg looked disgusted. “That’s gross, Margaret,” he said. He made a face, sticking his tongue part way out. Talk about gross. “Can't you wait until after lunch?”

  I was doing what came naturally, and did not dignify his statement with a response. There was a side dish of bee pollen on the table. I took a spoonful and mixed it with the wax, chewing noisily. I’d had a rough morning, and bickering with Greg wasn’t making the day more pleasant.

  Besides, neither he nor David has any real respect for my position in the company. Greg doesn’t take my job seriously at all. And David simply does what he wants to do, regardless of whether it makes any money, for himself or anyone else. He was giving me a back-to-nature lecture, and it was far too late for that.

  This whole lunch was a waste of time. I was tired of listening to them, and felt an intense urge to get back to work. A couple of quick stings distracted them both: I had the advantage of surprise. I ate some more honey and quickly waxed them over. They were soon hibernating side by side in two large octagonal cells.

  I looked around the restaurant. People were rather nervously pretending not to have noticed. I called the waiter over and handed him my credit card. He signaled to several bus boys, who brought a covered cart and took Greg and David away. “They’ll eat themselves out of that by Thursday afternoon,” I told him. “Store them on their sides in a warm, dry place, away from direct heat.” I left a large tip.

  I walked back to the office, feeling a bit ashamed of myself. A couple days of hibernation weren't going to make Greg or David more sympathetic to my problems. And they’d be real mad when they got out.

  I didn’t use to do things like that. I used to be more patient, didn’t I? More appreciative of the diverse spectrum of human possibility. More interested in sex and television.

  This job was not doing much for me as a warm, personable human being. At the very least, it was turning me into an unpleasant lunch companion. Whatever had made me think I wanted to get into management anyway?

  The money, maybe.

  But that wasn’t all. It was the challenge, the chance to do something new, to control the total effort instead of just doing part of a project. . ..

  The money too, though. There were other ways to get money. Maybe I should just kick the supports out from under the damn job and start over again.

  I saw myself sauntering into Tom’s office, twirling his visitor's chair around and falling into it. The words “I quit” would force their way out, almost against my will. His face would show surprise—feigned, of course. By then I'd have to go through with it. Maybe I'd put my feet up on his desk. And then—

  But was it possible to just quit, to go back to being the person I used to be? No. I wouldn't be able to do it. I’d never be a management virgin again.

  I walked up to the employee entrance at the rear of the building. A suction device next to the door sniffed at me, recognized my scent, and clicked the door open. Inside, a group of new employees, trainees, were clustered near the door, while a personnel officer introduced them to the lock and let it familiarize itself with their pheromones.

  On the way down the hall, I passed Tom’s office. The door was open. He was at his desk, bowed over some papers, and looked up as I went by.

  “Ah, Margaret,” he said. “Just the person I want to talk to. Come in for a minute, would you.” He moved a large file folder onto the papers in front of him on his desk, and folded his hands on top of them. “So glad you were passing by.” He nodded toward a large, comfortable chair. “Sit down.”

  “We’re going to be doing a bit of restructuring in the department,” he began, “and I’ll need your input, so I want to fill you in now on what will be happening.”

  I was immediately suspicious. Whenever Tom said “I’ll need your input,” he meant everything was decided already.

  “We’ll be reorganizing the whole division, of course,” he continued, drawing little boxes on a blank piece of paper. He’d mentioned this at the department meeting last week.

  “Now, your group subdivides functionally into two separate areas, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well—”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, nodding his head as though in agreement. “That would be the way to do it.” He added a few lines and a few more boxes. From what I could see, it meant that Harry would do all the interesting stuff and I’d sweep up afterwards.

  “Looks to me as if you’ve cut the balls out of my area and put them over into Harry Winthrop’s,” I said.

  “Ah, but your area is still very important, my dear. That’s why I don’t have you actually reporting to Harry.” He gave me a smile like a lie.

  He had put me in a tidy little bind. After all, he was my boss. If he was going to take most of my area away from me, as it seemed he was, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. And I would be better off if we both pretended that I hadn’t experienced any loss of status. That way I kept my title and my salary.

  “Oh, I see.” I said. “Right.”

  It dawned on me that this whole thing had been decided already, and that Harry Winthrop probably knew all about it. He’d probably even wangled a raise out of it. Tom had called me in here to make it look casual, to make it look as though I had something to say about it. I’d been set up.

  This made me mad. There was no question of quitting now. I’d stick around and fight. My eyes blurred, unfocused, refocused again. Compound eyes! The promise of the small comb in my hand was fulfilled! I felt a deep chemical understanding of the ecological system I was now a part of. I knew where I fit in. And I knew what I was going to do. It was inevitable now, hardwired in at the DNA level.

  The strength of this conviction triggered another change in the chitin, and for the first time I could actually feel the rearrangement of my mouth and nose, a numb tickling like inhaling seltzer water. The stiletto receded and mandibles j
utted forth, rather like Katharine Hepburn. Form and function achieved an orgasmic synchronicity. As my jaw pushed forward, mantis-like, it also opened, and I pounced on Tom and bit his head off.

  He leaped from his desk and danced headless about the office.

  I felt in complete control of myself as I watched him and continued the conversation. “About the Model 2000 launch,” I said. “If we factor in the demand for pipeline throughout and adjust the media mix just a bit, I think we can present a very tasty little package to Product Marketing by the end of the week.”

  Tom continued to strut spasmodically, making vulgar copulative motions. Was I responsible for evoking these mantid reactions? I was unaware of a sexual component in our relationship.

  I got up from the visitor’s chair and sat behind his desk, thinking about what had just happened. It goes without saying that I was surprised at my own actions. I mean, irritable is one thing, but biting people’s heads off is quite another. But I have to admit that my second thought was, well, this certainly is a useful strategy, and should make a considerable difference in my ability to advance myself. Hell of a lot more productive than sucking people’s blood.

  Maybe there was something after all to Tom’s talk about having the proper attitude.

  And, of course, thinking of Tom, my third reaction was regret. He really had been a likeable guy, for the most part. But what’s done is done, you know, and there’s no use chewing on it after the fact.

  I buzzed his assistant on the intercom. “Arthur,” I said, “Mr. Samson and I have come to an evolutionary parting of the ways. Please have him re-engineered. And charge it to Personnel.”

  Now I feel an odd itching on my forearms and thighs. Notches on which I might fiddle a song?

  THE FAITHFUL COMPANION AT FORTY

  Karen Joy Fowler

  “The Faithful Companion at Forty” was purchased by Gardner Dozois, and appeared in the July 1987 issue of Asimov’s, with an illustration by John Lakey; it went on to be a Hugo and Nebula finalist that year. Fowler made her first professional sale to Asimov’s in 1985, to Shawna McCarthy, and later became a frequent contributor to the magazine under two different editors. In 1986, she won the John W. Campbell Award as the year's best new writer; 1986 also saw the appearance of her first book, the collection Artificial Things, which was released to an enthusiastic response and impressive reviews. Her first novel, Sarah Canary, was released in 1991, and greeted with even more enthusiasm. Fowler lives in Davis, California, has two children, did her graduate work in North Asian politics, and occasionally teaches ballet.

  In the surreal and funny story that follows, she gives us an intriguing look beyond those thrilling days of yesteryear. . . .

  * * *

  His first reaction is that I just can’t deal with the larger theoretical issues. He’s got this new insight he wants to call the Displacement Theory and I can’t grasp it. Your basic, quiet, practical minority sidekick. The limited edition. Kato. Spock. Me. But this is not true.

  I still remember the two general theories we were taught on the reservation which purported to explain the movement of history. The first we named the Great Man Theory. Its thesis was that the critical decisions in human development were made by individuals, special people gifted in personality and circumstance. The second we named the Wave Theory. It argued that only the masses could effectively determine the course of history. Those very visible individuals who appeared as leaders of the great movements were, in fact, only those who happened to articulate the direction which had already been chosen. They were as much the victims of the process as any other single individual. Flotsam. Running Dog and I used to be able to debate this issue for hours.

  It is true that this particular question has ceased to interest me much. But a correlative question has come to interest me more. I spent most of my fortieth birthday sitting by myself, listening to Pachelbel’s Canon, over and over, and I’m asking myself: Are some people special? Are some people more special than others? Have I spent my whole life backing the wrong horse?

  I mean, it was my birthday and not one damn person called.

  Finally, about four o’clock in the afternoon, I gave up and I called him. “Eh. Poncho,” I say. “What’s happening?”

  “Eh, Cisco,” he answers. “Happy birthday.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him. I can’t decide whether I am more pissed to know he remembered but didn't call than I was when I thought he forgot.

  “The big four-o,” he says. “Wait a second, buddy. Let me go turn the music down.” He’s got the William Tell Overture blasting on the stereo. He’s always got the William Tell Overture blasting on the stereo. I’m not saying the man has a problem, but the last time we were in Safeway together he claimed to see a woman being kidnapped by a silver baron over in frozen foods. He pulled the flip top off a Tab and lobbed the can into the ice cream. “Cover me,” he shouts, and runs an end pattern with the cart through the soups. I had to tell everyone he was having a Vietnam flashback.

  And the mask. There are times and seasons when a mask is useful; I’m the first to admit that. It’s Thanksgiving, say, and you’re an Indian so it’s never been one of your favorite holidays, and you’ve got no family because you spent your youth playing the supporting role to some macho creep who couldn’t commit, so here you are, standing in line, to see ‘’Rocky IV” and someone you know walks by. I mean, I’ve been there. But for everyday, for your ordinary life, a mask is only going to make you more obvious. There’s an element of exhibitionism in it. A large element. If you ask me.

  So now he’s back on the phone. He sighs. “God,” he says. “I miss those thrilling days of yesteryear.”

  See? We haven’t talked twenty seconds and already the subject is his problems. His ennui. His angst. “I’m having an affair,” I tell him. Two years ago I wouldn't have said it. Two years ago he’d just completed his EST training and he would have told me to take responsibility for it. Now he’s into biofeedback and astrology. Now we’re not responsible for anything.

  “Yeah?” he says. He thinks for a minute. “You’re not married,” he points out.

  I can’t see that this is relevant. “She is,” I tell him.

  “Yeah?” he says again, only this “yeah” has a nasty quality to it; this “yeah” tells me someone is hoping for sensationalistic details. This is not the “yeah” of a concerned friend. Still, I can’t help playing to it. For years I’ve been holding this man’s horse while he leaps onto its back from the roof. For years I’ve been providing cover from behind a rock while he breaks for the back door. I’m forty now. It’s time to get something back from him. So I hint at the use of controlled substances. We’re talking peyote and cocaine. I mention pornography. Illegally imported. From Denmark. Of course, it’s not really my affair. Can you picture me? My affair is quiet and ardent. I borrowed this affair from another friend. It shows you the lengths I have to go to before anyone will listen to me.

  I may finally have gone too far. He’s really at a loss now. “Women,” he says finally. “You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.” Which is a joke, coming from him. He had that single-man-raising-his-orphaned-nephew-all-alone schtick working so smoothly the women were passing each other on the way in and out the door. Or maybe it was the mask and the leather. What do women want? Who has a clue?

  “Is that it?” I ask him. “The sum total of your advice? She won’t leave her husband. Man, my heart is broken.”

  “Oh,” he says. There's a long pause. “Don’t let it show,” he suggests. Then he signs. Again. “I miss that old white horse,” he tells me. And you know what I do? I hang up on him. And you know what he doesn't do? He doesn’t call me back.

  It really hurts me.

  So his second reaction, now that I don't want to listen to him explaining his new theories to me, is to say that I seem to be sulking about something, he can't imagine what. And this is harder to deny.

  The day after my birthday I went for a d
rive in my car, a little white Saab with personalized license plates. KEMO. they say. Maybe the phone is ringing, maybe it’s not. I feel better when I don’t know. So, he misses his horse. Hey, I’ve never been the same since that little pinto of mine joined the Big Round-up, but I try not to burden my friends with anything. I just nurse them back to health when the Cavendish gang leaves them for dead. I just come in the middle of the night with the medicine man when little Britt has a fever and it’s not responding to Tylenol. I just organize the surprise party when a friend turns forty.

  You want to bet even Attila the Hun had a party on his fortieth? You want to bet he was one hard man to surprise? And who blew up the balloons and had everyone hiding under the rugs and in with the goats? This name is lost forever.

  I drove out into the country, where every cactus holds its memory for me. where every outcropping of rock once hid an outlaw. Ten years ago the terrain was still so rough I would have had to take the International Scout. Now it’s a paved highway straight to the hanging tree. I pulled over to the shoulder of the road, turned off the motor, and I just sat there. I was remembering the time Ms. Emily Cooper stumbled into the Wilcox bank robbery looking for her little girl who’d gone with friends to the swimming hole and hadn’t bothered to tell her mama. We were on our way to see Colonel Davis at Fort Comanche about some cattle rustling. We hadn’t heard about the bank robbery. Which is why we were taken completely by surprise.

  My pony and I were eating the masked man’s dust, as usual, when something hit me from behind. Arnold Wilcox, a heavy-set man who sported a five o’clock shadow by eight in the morning, jumped me from the big rock overlooking the Butterfield trail and I went down like a sack of potatoes. I heard horses converging on us from the left and the right and that hypertrophic white stallion of his took off like a big bird. I laid one on Arnold’s stubbly jaw, but he cold-cocked me with the butt of his pistol and I couldn’t tell you what happened next.