The Collected Short Fiction of C J Cherryh

by C. J. Cherryh

  Knowing how little time there was. It would go, it would go then, and leave him. And there would be nothing after that. Ever.

  11

  Anne was waiting for him, at the riverside—amid the stumps of trees, mud, cleared earth. Trees dammed the river, water spilling over them, between them, flooding up over the banks and changing the land into a shallow, sandy lake.

  He stopped there, leaned against the last standing tree on that margin and shivered, slow tremors which robbed him of strength and sense. She stood placidly in the ruin; he called her on the com, heard her voice, saw her face, then her body, orient toward him. He began to cross the bridge of tumbled trees, clinging to branches, walking tilted trunks.

  "Damn you," he shouted at her. Tears ran down his face. "Damn you!"

  She met him at the other side, silver slimed with mud and soot from the burning she had done. Her sensors blinked. "Assistance?"

  He found his self-control, shifted his attack. "You've damaged yourself."

  "I'm functioning normally. Assistance?"

  He started to push past her, slipped on the unstable log. She reached to save him, her arm rock-solid, stable. He clung to it, his only point of balance. Her facelights blinked at him. Her other hand came up to rest on his shoulder. Contact. She offered contact. He had meant to shove at her. He touched her gently, patted her plastic-sheathed shoulder, fought back the tears. "You've killed, Annie. Don't you understand?"

  "Vegetation."

  He shoved past her, limped up the devastated shore, among the stumps of trees. His head throbbed. His stomach felt hollow.

  The crawler still waited on the bank. Anne overtook him as he reached it; she offered him her hand as he climbed in. He slid into the seat, slipped the brake, started the motor and threw it full throttle, leaving her behind.

  "Warren." Her voice pursued him.

  He kept driving, wildly, swerving this way and that over the jolts, past the brush.

  "Anne," he said, standing at the airlock. "Open the lock."

  Silence.

  "Anne. Open the lock, please."

  It hissed wide. He walked in, unsteady as he was, onto the cargo platform. "Engage lift, Anne."

  Gears crashed. It started up, huge and ponderous that it was. "Warren," the disembodied voice said, from the speakers, everywhere, echoing. "What's your status, Warren?"

  "Good, thank you."

  "Your voice indicates stress."

  "Hoarseness. Minor dysfunction in my speaking apparatus. It's self-repairing."

  A silence. "Recorded." The lift stopped on nether-deck. He walked out, calmly, to the lower weapons locker, put his card in.

  Dead. "I've got a lock malfunction here, Anne. Number 13/546. Would you clear it up?"

  "Emergency locks are still engaged."

  "Disengage."

  Silence.

  "There is no emergency." He fought the anger from his voice. "Disengage emergency locks and cancel all emergency procedures."

  "This vocal dysfunction is not repaired."

  He leaned against the wall, stared down the corridor.

  "Warren, please confirm your status."

  "Normal, I tell you." He went to the lift. It worked. It brought him up to the level of the laboratories. He walked down to Bio, walked in, tried the cabinets.

  "Anne, I need medicines. Disengage the locks. I need medicines for repair."

  The lock clicked. It opened.

  He took out the things he needed, washed his torn hands, prepared a stimulant. He was filthy. He saw himself like a specter in a reflecting glass, gaunt, stubbled; looked down and saw his clothes unrecognizable in color. He washed an area of his arm and fired the injection, rummaged through the cabinet for medicines to cure the hoarseness. He found some lozenges, ripped one from the foil and sucked on it, then headed off for the showers, undressing as he went.

  A quick wash. He had forgotten clean clothes; he belted on the bathrobe he had left in the showers, on a body gone gaunt. His hands shook. The stim hummed in his veins. He could not afford the shakes. He had visions of the pseudosome walking back toward the ship; she would be here soon. He had to make normal moves. Had to do everything in accustomed order. He went to the galley next, opened the box and downed fruit juice from its container; it hit his stomach in a wave of cold.

  He hauled out other things. Dried food. Stacked it there. He took out one frozen dinner and put it in the microwave.

  It turned on without his touching it.

  "Time, please."

  "Fifteen minutes," he told it. He walked out. He took the dried food with him to the lift.

  He punched buttons. It took him up. He walked out into the corridor; lights came on for him. Lights came on in the living quarters, in his own quarters, as he entered. He dumped the dried stores on the bed, opened the locker and pulled out all his clothing— dressed, short of breath, having to stop and rest in the act of putting his boots on.

  The lock crashed and boomed in the bowels of the ship.

  She was back. He pulled the second boot on. He could hear the lift working. He folded his remaining clothes. He heard the next lift work. He arranged everything on his bed. He heard footsteps approach.

  He looked round. Anne stood there, muddy, streaked with soot.

  "Assistance? Please confirm your status, Warren."

  He thought a moment. "Fine. You're dirty, Anne. Decontaminate."

  Sensors flickered, one and then the others. "You're packing. This program is preparatory to going to the river. Please reconsider this program."

  "I'm just cleaning up. Why don't you get me dinner?"

  "You fixed dinner, Warren."

  "I didn't like it. You fix it. I'll have dinner up here at the table. Fifteen minutes. I need it, Anne. I'm hungry."

  "Yes, Warren."

  "And clean up."

  "Yes, Warren."

  The pseudosome left. He dropped his head into his hands, caught his breath. Best to rest a bit. Have dinner. See what he could do about a program and get her to take it. He went to the desk where he had left the programming microfilm, got it and fed it into the viewer.

  He scanned through the emergency programs, the E sequences, hoping to distract her into one of those. There was nothing that offered a way to seize control. Nothing that would lock her up.

  It was feeding into her, even now; she had library access. The viewer was part of her systems. The thought made him nervous. He scanned through harmless areas, to confound her.

  "Dinner's ready," the speaker told him.

  He wiped his face, shut down the viewer and walked out, hearing the lift in function.

  Anne arrived, carrying a tray. She set things on the table, arranged them.

  He sat down. She poured him coffee, walked to her end of the table and sat facing him.

  He ate a few bites. The food nauseated him. He shoved the plate away.

  Her lights flickered. "Chess?"

  "Thank you, no, Anne. I've got other things to do."

  "Do. Yes. Activity. What activity do you choose, Warren?"

  He stared at her. Observation and question. Subsequent question. "Your assimilation's really made a lot of progress, hasn't it? Lateral activity."

  "The lateral patterning is efficient in forecast. Question posed: what activity do you choose, Warren?"

  "I'm going down below. You stay here. Clean up the dinner."

  "Yes, Warren."

  He pushed back from the table, walked out and down the corridor to the lift. He decided on routine, on normalcy, on time to think.

  He rode the lift back to the lab level, walked out.

  She turned the lights on for him, turned them off behind as he walked, always conservative.

  He pushed the nearest door button. Botany, it was. The door stayed shut.

  "Lab doors locked," he said casually. "Open it."

  The door shot back. Lights went on.

  The room was a shambles. Planting boxes were overthrown, ripped loose, pipes twisted,
planting medium scattered everywhere, the floor, the walls. Some of the boxes were partially melted, riddled with laser fire.

  He backed out, quietly, quickly. Closed the door. Walked back to the lift, his footsteps echoing faster and faster on the decking. He opened the lift door, stepped in, pushed the button for topside.

  It took him up. He left it, walking now as quickly, as normally, as he could, not favoring his leg.

  Anne had left the living quarters. He went by the vacant table, to the bridge corridor, to the closed door at the end. He used his cardkey.

  It stayed shut.

  "Anne," he said, "you have a malfunction. There's no longer an emergency. Please clear the emergency lock on the bridge. I have a critical problem involving maintenance. I need to get to controls right now."

  A delay. The speaker near his head came on. "Emergency procedure remains in effect. Access not permitted."

  "Anne. We have a paradox here. The problem involves your mistake."

  "Clarify: mistake."

  "You've perceived a false emergency. You've initiated wrong procedures. Some of your equipment is damaged. Cancel emergency. This is a code nine. Cancel emergency and open this door."

  A further delay. "Negative. Access denied."

  "Anne." He pushed the button again. It was dead. He heard a heavy step in the corridor behind him. He jerked about with his back to the door and looked into Anne's dark faceplate with its dancing stars. "Open it," he said. "I'm in pain, Anne. The pain won't stop until you cancel emergency procedure and open this door."

  "Please adjust yourself."

  "I'm not malfunctioning. I need this door opened." He forced calm into his voice, adopted a reasoning tone. "The ship is in danger, Anne. I have to get in there."

  "Please go back to permitted areas, Warren."

  He caught his breath, stared at her, then edged past her carefully, down the corridor to the living quarters. She was at his back, still, following.

  "Is this a permitted area?" he asked.

  "Yes, Warren."

  "I want a cup of coffee. Bring it."

  "Yes, Warren."

  She walked out into the main corridor. The door closed behind her. He delayed a moment till he heard the lift, then went and tried it. Dead. "Anne. Now there's a malfunction with number two access. Will you do something about it?"

  "Access not permitted."

  "I need a bath, Anne. I need to go down to the showers."

  A delay. "This is not an emergency procedure. Please wait f6r assistance."

  A scream welled up in him. He swallowed it, smoothed his hand over the metal as if it were skin. "All right. All right, Anne." He turned, walked back to his own quarters.

  The clothes and food were gone from the bed.

  The manual. He went to the viewer. The microfilm was gone. He searched the drawer where he kept it. It was not there.

  Panic surged up in him. He stifled it, walked out. He walked back to the table, sat down—heard the lift operating finally. Heard her footsteps. The door opened.

  "Coffee, Warren."

  "Thank you, Annie."

  She set the cup down, poured his coffee. Hydraulics worked in the ship, massive movement, high on the frame. The turret rotating. Warren looked up. "What's that, Anne?"

  "Armaments, Warren."

  The electronic snap of the cannon jolted the ship. He sprang up from his chair and Anne set down the coffee pot.

  "Anne. Anne, cancel weapons. Cancel!"

  The firing went on.

  "Cancel refused," Anne said.

  "Anne—show me. . . what you're shooting at. Put it on the screen."

  The wallscreen lit, the black of night, a thin line of orange: a horizon, ablaze with fires.

  "You're killing it!"

  "Vegetation, Warren. Emergency program is proceeding."

  "Anne." He seized her metal, unflexing arm. "Cancel program."

  "Negative."

  "On what reasoning? Anne—turn on your sensor box. Turn it on. Scan the area."

  "It is operating, Warren. I'm using it to refine target. Possibly the equipment will survive. Possibly I can recover it. Please adjust yourself, Warren. Your voice indicates stress."

  "It's life you're killing out there!"

  "Vegetation, Warren. This is a priority, but overridden. I'm programmed to make value judgments. I've exercised my override reflex. This is a rational function. Please adjust yourself, Warren."

  "The lab. You destroyed the lab. Why?"

  "I don't like vegetation, Warren."

  "Don't like?

  "Yes, Warren. This seems descriptive."

  "Anne, you're malfunctioning. Listen to me. You'll have to shut down for a few moments. I won't damage you or interfere with your standing instructions. I'm your crew, Anne. Shut down."

  "I can't accept this instruction, Warren. One of my functions is preservation of myself. You're my highest priority. To preserve you I have to preserve myself. Please adjust yourself, Warren."

  "Anne, let me out. Let me out of here."

  "No, Warren."

  The firing stopped. On the screen the fires continued to burn. He looked at it, leaned on the back of the chair, shaking.

  "Assistance?"

  "Go to hell."

  "I can't go to hell, Warren. I have to hold this position."

  "Anne. Anne—listen. I found a being out there. A sapient life form. In the forest. I talked with it. You're killing a sapient being, you hear me?"

  A delay. "My sensors detected nothing. Your activities are erratic and injurious. I record your observation. Please provide data."

  "Your sensor box. Turn it on."

  "It's still operating, Warren."

  "It was there. The life was there, when I was. I can go back. I can prove it. I talked to it, Anne."

  "There was no other life there."

  "Because your sensor unit couldn't register it. Because your sensors aren't sensitive enough. Because you're not human, Anne."

  "I have recorded sounds. Identify."

  The wallscreen flicked to a view of the grove. The wind sighed in the leaves; something babbled. A human figure lay writhing on the ground, limbs jerking, mouth working with the sounds. Himself. The murmur was his own voice, inebriate and slurred.

  He turned his face from it. "Cut it off. Cut it off, Anne."

  The sound stopped. The screen was blank and white when he turned his head again. He leaned there a time. There was a void in him where life had been. Where he had imagined life. He sat down at the table, wiped his eyes.

  After a moment he picked up the coffee and drank.

  "Are you adjusted, Warren?"

  "Yes. Yes, Anne."

  "Emergency program will continue until all surrounds are sterilized."

  He sat staring at his hands, at the cup before him. "And then what will I do?"

  Anne walked to the end of the table, sat down, propped her elbows on the table, head on hands, sensor lights blinking in continuous operation.

  The chessboard flashed to the wallscreen at her back.

  The pawn advanced one square.

  IV

  "Well, how many were there?" I ask, over supper.

  "There might have been four."

  "There was one," I say. "Anne was Warren too." blink in all innocence. "In a manner of speaking."

  We sit together, speaking under the canned music. Art made into white noise, to divide us table from table in the dining hall. "Awful stuff, that music," I say. Then I have another thought:

  "On the other hand—"

  "There were four?"

  "No. The music. The Greeks painted vases."

  "What have Greek urns got to do with canned music?"

  "Art. Do you know—" I hold up a spoon. "This is art."

  "Come on. They stamp them out by the thousands."

  "But an artist designed this. Its balance, its shape. An artist drew it and sculpted it, and another sort made the die. Then a workman ran it and collected his wage. Whi
ch he used to buy a tape. Do you know, we work most of our lives to afford two things: leisure and art."

  "Even mass-produced art?"

  "The Greeks mass-produced clay lamps. Now we call them antiquities. And we set them on little pedestals in museums. They painted their pots and their lamps. Rich Greeks had musicians at their banquets. Nowadays the poorest man can have a fine metal spoon and have music to listen to with his dinner. That's magical."

  "Well, now the rest of us have got to put up with damned little die-stamped spoons."

  "How many of us would have owned a spoon in those good old days?"

  "Who needed them? Fingers worked."

  "So did typhoid."

  "What has typhoid to do with spoons?"

  "Sanitation. Cities and civilizations died for want of spoons. And good drainage. It's all art. I've walked the streets of dead cities. It's an eerie thing, to read the graves and the ages. Very many children. Very many. And so many cities which just—died. Not in violence. Just of needs we take for granted. I tell you we are all kings and magicians. Our touch on a machine brings light, sound, musicians appear in thin air, pictures leap from world to world. Each of us singly wields the power output of a Mesopotamian empire—without ever thinking about it. We can afford it."

  "We waste it."

  I lift my hand toward the unseen stars. "Does the sun? I suppose that it does. But we gather what it throws away. And the universe doesn't lose it, except to entropy."

  "A world has only so much."

  "A solar system has too much ever to bring home. Look at the asteroids, the moons, the sun—No, the irresponsible thing is not to wield that power. To sit in a closed world and do nothing. To refuse to mass-produce. To deny some fellow his bit of art bought with his own labor. It's not economical to paint a pot. Or to make a vase for flowers. Or to grow flowers instead of cabbages."

  "Cabbages," you recall, "have their importance in the cosmic system."

  "Don't flowers? And isn't it better that a man has music with his dinner and a pot with a design on it?"

  "You don't like the ancient world?"

  "Let me tell you, most of us didn't live well. Most of us didn't make it past childhood. And not just villages vanished in some bitter winter. Whole towns did. Whole nations. There were no good old days."