A King of Infinite Space

by Allen Steele

  Point is, that’s the sort of hardship even a relatively minor sporting accident can cause. Now, according to John—and I had Chip’s word for it as well—my little somersault down the Great Hall staircase had broken my right arm in two places, banged up my ribs, busted my ass, given me a couple of cuts, knocked me semicomatose…and just fourteen hours later, most of my injuries have been healed. I’m in no pain; even my right arm feels only a little numb.

  Something is most definitely weird.

  John finds a seat on a nearby stool. “Obviously, you have many questions,” he goes on, folding his hands together in his lap. “In fact, I know for a fact that you do. Your associate…I believe you call him Chip now…?”

  How the hell did he know that? John seems to relish the baffled expression on my face. “There is virtually nothing that you say or do that I cannot find out, Alec, and that includes the content of your dialogues with your MINN…Anyway, you’ve been asking Chip many questions lately about your past, and some of the most pertinent ones were posed yesterday morning, just before your accident. Your recent illness had something to do with this, am I right?”

  “Maybe.” I sip at the water bottle as I try to figure out what sort of game he’s playing. Poker, probably; he doubtless holds a better hand than I do, but I have a few aces of my own. I toss one out. “Throwing up and not being able to eat probably had a lot to do with it, too. Meant that I couldn’t take any more of whatever you’ve been putting in my food, and I puked up the stuff that was already in my system.”

  Again, John smiles at me, a bit more fondly this time. “If that’s a guess,” he replies, “it’s a good one. Yes, your food has been drugged for quite some time now…some memory and sexual suppressants, mainly, although a mild hypnotic was also added to make you and your friends a little more docile and easy to train. You’re not going to believe me when I tell you this, but it’s been done for your own good. We’ve never intended to keep you in this state permanently—”

  “I bet.”

  He shrugs. “If it had been our intent to keep you dumbed-down forever, then Dr. Miesel would have given you a booster shot of the same mélange when you were brought here. The mere fact that we’re having this conversation at all is proof of my sincerity.”

  He idly picks at lint on the lap of his robe. “No, we’ve actually been lessening the dosage of the drugs for the past few weeks, so as to gradually bring you and your friends out of your collective fugue. In your case, this process was greatly accelerated. Your body cleansed itself of all the drugs in about a day, your mind reacted by becoming easily distracted…” He motions to the tube on my arm. “And this is the result. That’s one reason for the drugs.”

  “Uh-huh.” I still don’t trust John, yet I have to admit that his story makes sense. So far, at least. “So where does that leave us?”

  “Why, where we were last night, of course.” His smile fades. “I want to know everything that you’ve remembered about your past…and this time you can’t pretend at being stupid, Alec. We both know better.”

  Well. That’s my trump card, isn’t it? “Suppose I don’t tell you?” I cradle the bottle between my knees. “I could just sit here and keep my mouth shut. A fat lot of good that’ll do you, won’t it?”

  Even as I speak, I recognize the fatal flaw in my gambit. If John and his people have the ability to keep me dumb and happy for months on end, then they can just as easily use different drugs to make me spill the beans. “I don’t know what it is that I know that you think is so important.” I rush on, “but it wouldn’t be a great idea to use more dope to make me talk, would it, huh?”

  “No…no, I suppose it wouldn’t.” John rubs his chin as he gravely nods his head. “You’ve got me there, Alec. We have to use these psychoactives quite carefully. In fact, Dr. Miesel tells me that if we try to use anything else on you at this stage of your recovery, it could turn around and throw you in a persistent vegetative state. You wouldn’t even be able to get out of bed, let alone give us any coherent answers.”

  He sighs. “I know you don’t know why, Alec, and that is one thing I can’t tell you…but you must know this: it is very important to Mister Chicago that he know everything you’ve remembered about your past before you came here.”

  As he speaks, his right hand disappears into the front pouch of his robe. When it comes out again, it holds a tiny syringe-gun. Before I can react, he places its short barrel against the back of my immobile right hand.

  “Now,” he says very softly, his pink eyes boring into mine, “the choice is very simple. Either you start talking, or the next time you wake up, it’ll be when someone is spooning soup into your drooling mouth.”

  My heart hammers against my chest. The foam padding of the tube is suddenly moist with sweat. I look into John’s eyes and see only ice. Fuck almighty, he’s not kidding…

  Isn’t he?

  If what little I know is so goddamn important, would he risk turning me into a zombie just because I’m being stubborn? I’m his prisoner; I don’t even know where I am, how I came to be here. He can afford to be patient…

  I lick my dry lips and stare back at him. “Tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you…”

  “No deals, Alec.” His forefinger starts tightening on a small button within the trigger guard. “Talk or don’t talk.”

  “You said that this is important to Mister Chicago, right?” The words rush out my mouth as a babble. “Yeah, okay, cool…so why don’t we wait until Mister Chicago gets back, okay? ’Cause if we do that, then I can tell him myself and you don’t have to explain all this or nothing, and everything’ll be cool and we don’t have to mention none of this shit or nothing, y’know what I mean, man?”

  John’s finger remains poised on the trigger. The slightest pressure will make me the butt of all the worst Helen Keller jokes I had ever heard…and although I had seen a few sad cases like that during my stay in the White Room, for some reason they all vanished and were never seen again. I might become an imbecile, but even that won’t last very long before a worse fate befalls me.

  “Is it that important to you?” His voice is very soft now. “Is it so necessary that you meet Mister Chicago, to know who he is?”

  Actually, it isn’t. That knowledge is very low on my list of priorities. Mister Chicago, Mister New York, Mister Memphis, Mister Boise…I don’t give a shit who he is, other than the fact that John was obviously subservient to him and would never dare to double-cross him. I suddenly remember a trick Roger Moore used in an old James Bond movie I once caught on TBS; in desperation, I decide that it couldn’t hurt to use it now.

  “Yeah, man,” I say. “Bring me Mister Chicago. Then we’ll talk.”

  A long pause. The finger relaxes on the trigger. “That’s a promise?”

  “That’s a promise, I swear.”

  The syringe-gun lifts away from my hand, leaving a bloodless white spot on my skin. John tucks it back into his pocket, then he reaches up and pulls back the hood of his robe. For the first time, I see that his hair was as long and white as silk.

  “Very well, then,” he says. “Let’s meet Mister Chicago.”

  He triple-blinks and murmurs something under his breath, and then his face starts to melt.

  It’s a very unsettling thing, watching the skin on a man’s face slough off like so much wet putty. It can really put you off your food.

  I shrink back in bed as John’s face begins to dissolve. First in tiny rivulets, then in large globs, his brow and cheeks and chin and lips liquefy and start falling off as if he’s afflicted with the worst mutant strain of leprosy imaginable. Yet John doesn’t seem to feel any pain. He turns away from me and goes to a nearby sink, where he picks up a folded towel and raises it to his face. He doesn’t speak to me—probably because he can’t—and with his back to me, it’s a little easier to take, but I can still hear thick splattering sounds from the basin.

  “I’m sorry if this is grotesque,” he finally says, his voice muffled by t
he towel, “but I assure you that it’s harmless.”

  “Oh no, man.” My gorge rises as he casually tears off his rotting nose and drops it in the sink. “Seen it before. Happens all the time.”

  A dry laugh. “I rather doubt you have. Nanotechnology was very primitive in the late twentieth century. You see…um, excuse me.”

  John turns on the water, then bends over and dips his face beneath the faucet. More splattering sounds, wetter and chunkier than before. I’m sincerely glad that my stomach is empty. “As I was saying,” he continues as he rises from the sink, “this is an illusion cast by a few million nanites…microscopic robots, if you will…which have consumed dead epidermis cells on my face and reconstructed them into a living mask. Not just lifelike, you understand, but actually alive…a disguise that I could wear for as long as I choose. Interesting, hmm?”

  “If you say so.” Easy, kid. Take deep breaths…“Do this all the time?”

  “On occasion.” He vigorously massages his face with his hands. “Sometimes it’s…well, a little difficult for me to go in public without being noticed. Being able to put on another face can be quite useful. All it takes is a little practice and…ah, there we go.”

  He turns off the water, picks up a fresh towel, and buries his face in it. “Deliver fresh clothes to me in the infirmary,” he murmurs, perhaps to his own associate. “Casual evening outfit.”

  He takes a deep breath and turns around again. The man who stands before me looks very little like the John I met in the White Room. His skin is as cool and bloodless as porcelain, with only his pink eyes lending color to his albino hue; nose long and aquiline, high-boned cheeks, narrow lips, a high brow. Almost androgynous: beautiful yet hard, as if carved from a block of arctic ice.

  He steps fully into the light. “Look straight at me,” he says, as if I’m not already, “and ask your associate to give you my name.”

  I go eyes-up. “Chip, what is this guy’s name?”

  His name is Pasquale Chicago.

  Oh, shit.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Mister Chicago,” I manage to say.

  “We’ve already met, Alec.” He returns to the stool where John had been sitting only a few minutes earlier. The front of his robe is soaked with flesh-colored stains; as he continues to wipe his face with the towel, the last traces of his mask soil the cloth. “You know,” he says as he sits down, “you’re a fascinating young man. I’ve enjoyed observing you for these past few months. Indeed, I’ve made you my personal hobby. You were the first one of your group to recover from neurosuspension. Not only that, but you regained your long-term memory with little or no prompting. Congratulations. You’re the class valedictorian.”

  “Thanks.” What else am I supposed to say? “Do I get a diploma or something?”

  “Perhaps. Maybe even a graduation present. But first we have some unfinished business.”

  Mister Chicago drops the towel on the floor, then reaches into his pocket and pulls out the syringe-gun. He doesn’t place it against my hand again, but the implicit threat is there all the same. “You demanded to see me,” he says, “and now I’m here. So tell me…what have you remembered?”

  I take a deep breath. There’s no point in holding back now. I’ve still got an ace or two, but he has a fistful of kings.

  So I tell him everything. All my flashbacks, dreams, and impressions, all the many bits and pieces of my memory that I’ve struggled for so long to piece together as a cohesive whole, but which have now reformed themselves like a shattered vase that has been videotaped during its moment of destruction, then put into fast-reverse so that it’s magically made whole again, if only on tape.

  It takes a long time, but Mister Chicago listens patiently, nodding his head every so often to encourage me. At one point we’re interrupted by John—the real John, the brown-eyed version—bringing him a small stack of folded clothes. Mister Chicago dismisses him, then gives me a short break while he disappears into the next room; when he returns, he’s wearing soft calf boots, dark purple tights, a linen shirt, and an embroidered vest. Dressed this way, he seems taller and more gaunt than when he had played at being John. He sits down on the stool again and tells me to go on.

  I reveal all that I know save for one thing, a secret that I impulsively hold back for no other reason than loyalty: the servant whom I had long known as Christopher is, in fact, my best friend Shemp, whom I recognized only after falling down the stairs. I don’t know how Shemp has come to be here, but if I’m in any danger, then at least he’ll still be protected.

  When I’m through, Mister Chicago simply nods. He seems vaguely disappointed, as if he’s been anticipating some piece of information that I haven’t delivered. “And this is everything you recall?”

  “That’s it, man. The works.”

  “I told you, don’t call me ‘man.’” His eyes are glacial. “To you, I’m ‘sir.’”

  “That’s it, sir.”

  He picks up the syringe-gun from his lap, toys with it. The flesh on the back of my right hand prickles. All he has to do is give me one shot…

  “Thanks, Alec,” he says. “It’s been nice knowing you.”

  Then he jabs the gun against my hand and squeezes the trigger.

  “Shit! Goddammit, I told you everything…!”

  “Shh…” Mister Chicago lifts the gun away from my hand, pats my knee. “Hush now. Just relax. It’ll only take a second.”

  I shut my eyes and grit my teeth as I wait for some pharmaceutical cocktail to send me into oblivion. One…two…three…four…chicken soup’s great, can I have some more?

  Long seconds pass. I let out my breath and open my eyes again.

  I’m still conscious. I’m still William Alec Tucker III.

  “Salt water.” Mister Chicago tosses the gun in my lap. “There was never anything in here except a saline solution. Believe me, Alec, I’d never deliberately destroy a prize specimen like you. You’re much too precious to waste.”

  Then he raises his hand to his mouth; his eyes narrow as he sniggers. “But…oh my, the look on your face…”

  I don’t say anything, just as he knew I wouldn’t. The man not only has complete power over my life, but clearly he also has a maniacal sense of humor. It’s never a good idea to mess with someone like that.

  Mister Chicago recovers his poise. He reaches down to the tube encircling my right arm. “I think you’re ready, class valedictorian.” he says as he presses a couple of buttons. “You can get up now.”

  The upper half of the tube pops open with a soft hiss; my arm is nestled inside, as healthy as I have ever seen it. I withdraw it from the tube, carefully flex my elbow. There’s no indication that my arm has ever been injured. “Are you sure it was broken?” I ask, and he nods. “Okay, I gotta ask…how did you do it?”

  “Nanites.” He shrugs in a patronizing way. “Much the same process that allowed me to wear a different face. I could explain it to you, but you probably wouldn’t understand.”

  There’re a lot of things I don’t understand; this is the least of them. “Do I get to ask some questions now?”

  “You can ask.” Mister Chicago crosses his arms behind his back as he favors me with one of his more enigmatic smiles. “I think I can imagine what the first one is.”

  This is beginning to feel like a Jeopardy rerun: I’ll take Total Amnesia for 500, Alex. “If you know already, then how about giving me the answer?”

  Mister Chicago gazes at me for several seconds, savoring the moment. “You died on July 11, 1995,” he says at last. “By the Gregorian calendar, today’s date is April 5, 2099.”

  That wasn’t the question I had in mind, but it’s one hell of an answer.

  He holds out his hand, offering to help me out of the bed. “Those are only the most simple and basic facts,” he continues. “There’s much more. I promised you a graduation present, Mr. Tucker. If you’ll come with me, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

  I nod in a dumb sort of way, th
en sling my legs over the side of the bed. I’m naked, but this isn’t the first time I’ve awoken in the nude. Big Nurse Doctor comes in with a fresh robe, which I slip on without bothering to ask how she knew it was time to make a reappearance. Why should I? I’ve been dead for one hundred and four years, plus a few months and days. Things were liable to be a bit different…

  Still, I can’t help wondering if it isn’t too late for me to find a phone and call Dad. That’s what I always did when I was in trouble.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  * * *

  ARTIFICIAL SUNLIGHT

  Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,

  Passing through nature to eternity.

  —William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  So tell me, Alec,” asks Mister Chicago, “what do you remember about your father?”

  Until now, he’s said very little to me. John was waiting in the corridor just outside the infirmary; he discreetly followed us as Mister Chicago led me to an elevator I’ve never used before. I had the feeling that John was there as a bodyguard, in case the notion entered my mind to harm his master. For his part, Mister Chicago ignored John’s presence, just as he turned a deaf ear to my questions. The elevator opened only when he told it to, and it didn’t move until he said, “Solarium.”

  The solarium is a large geodesic dome on top of the castle; it’s like being inside a glass beehive. Across the rooftops of the castle’s four wings, the landscape sprawls out before us; for the first time, I can see its entire length and width. With horizons which are longer at its ends than at its sides—yet no more than a few miles in length, and only about a mile in width—and a sky, now turned almond-red by the fading daylight, that folds down to meet these short longitudes, it’s now apparent that this “world” was nothing more or less than an immense cylinder.

  The solarium is furnished with embroidered carpets, calfskin armchairs and couches, a round coffee table, and a small bar. The glass-topped desk at the far end of the room clues me that this was Mister Chicago’s sanctum. He crosses the room to sit behind the desk and, after motioning for me to take the nearest chair, tells John to bring him a cappuccino and politely inquires what I want to drink. I ask for the same; John goes to the bar and makes himself busy with a brass cappuccino maker.