A Planet for Rent

by Yoss

  Taking advantage of the pause, Moy sought out the mestizo girl’s eyes. They were filled with admiration—and horror. Good. Now she was as much his as the rest of them. Or more so.

  He strained his ear to try and figure out whether Ettubrute had already turned on the mechanical womb. It wasn’t really necessary yet; they had the best model on the market, and the synthesizing process was very quick. But it was always a relief to know that if something, anything, unexpected happened, then...

  He pushed the thought from his mind and continued.

  “Art is self-mutilation. It is the deliberate extraction of our most secret innards: our dreams.”

  The razor-thin blade of a semicircular pendulum (a reference to the Edgar Allan Poe story, which they would never catch) swung three times before opening the artist’s abdominal cavity with surgical exactitude. The bleeders automatically reversed their function, and not one drop of blood clouded the view of the organs.

  In anticipation, the nanomanipulators had injected different colorings into each organ, and Moy’s guts were a living symphony of exposed and pulsing colors. The analgesic drug circulated through his veins, preventing him from losing consciousness or going mad from sheer agony before the climactic moment. But the sensation of lying open, defenseless, strangely empty, was not something that derived from pain. And it was incredibly uncomfortable.

  “Dreams are the intangible substance that gives life, depth, and sentient volume to a work of art. What projects it beyond its narrow material frame.” Moy closed his glottis, concentrating on breathing through his nose.

  The pressurized hydrogen was injected into his intestine. The loops of the intestine, left clean by the nanos, inflated. Ghostly, semitransparent, rising from their place like the spirals of a horrendous larval snake. A surprising play of light glowed from within them, thanks to the gas.

  “Although the light of art is always ephemeral, that light is the artist’s breath of life, his soul, which expires in each work of art.”

  A nano punctured an intestinal loop and the superinflammable gas escaped with an audible hiss. Then the spark triggered flames, and for an instant Moy’s body was engulfed in a burning cloud.

  Only for one second. Any more would have been dangerous; it might have burnt his skin and flesh. The volume of hydrogen was calculated to the cubic centimeter.

  “And every critic, every exegesis, every interpretation of a work of art is a self-reflection, a journey to the inner self of the person who gave birth to it and clothed it in the flesh and skin of concepts.” Whenever he got to this point, Moy always regretted not being a woman. With a shredded uterus, this part of the monologue would have been much more powerful.

  Even so, the vision was pretty stunning.

  The knives of the nanoskinners sliced his epidermis, and the strips of skin fluttered in the wind like a macabre fringe. Bloodless. The surface capillaries were nearly empty; the bleeders were working at full capacity, concentrating the vital fluid in his essential organs.

  Moy felt dizzy and nearly fainted. But the neurostimulant circulating through his system instantly revived him. He smiled, pleased. Ettubrute was one hundred percent alert to his slightest vital signs. And he now heard the dull rumble of the mechanical womb doing its job. Everything was going fine. As always.

  “Behind the flesh and blood of emotions, the skeleton of theories and grand schemes is laid bare, the subtle framework of sex and power in mixed substrates.”

  In perfect synchrony, both of the artist’s legs—first the muscles, sliced from within, then the bones, breaking with an audible crack—fell onto the stage. There they kicked convulsively for several seconds before falling still.

  A few liters of blood flowed from the cut femoral arteries, streaming over the strangely empty trouser legs. Then the nanos stopped the flow. This wasn’t a mistake, but another well-calculated and inconsequential effect. With his body reduced practically to head and trunk, Moy simply did not need so much fluid. Besides, it might overwhelm the bleeders.

  Moy followed a Tibetan breathing pattern.

  Pain does not exist. Pain is an illusion.

  I exist. I am real.

  “What remains of art without the hidden alphabet of sex?” he howled.

  At that cry, the nanos cut away the bloodied rag to which his trousers had been reduced, and his sex stood erect, as if defying death. Not from artificially high blood pressure in the corpora cavernosa, nor from a timely dose of hormones. Moy was aroused, as always. It was the old irony. Eros and Thanatos.

  The proud exhibition only lasted a couple of seconds.

  Moy relaxed. Now, the most difficult part...

  The erect phallus exploded in a cascade of blue liquid. The nanos dissected the testicles from within and made them fall with a dull thud onto the stage.

  When the effects of the analgesic overcame the pain and emptiness that burned in his mutilated groin, Moy breathed more calmly. The worst was over now. The rest would be more impressive than painful.

  Kandria was watching him in genuine adoration. He had to take advantage of this mood of the girl’s. They were going to have a great time together, after all...

  “It is the artist’s sacrifice, his spirit, that makes his work soar with creativity.” Moy gulped.

  The artificial oxygenation system was set in motion, swapping out oxygen for carbon dioxide in his red blood cells without the mediation of his lungs. The nanos penetrated his bronchial tubes, and more hydrogen was injected into his pulmonary tissue. The pendulum again laid him open, this time at the thorax, and his swollen respiratory organs rose like balloons.

  They lifted his tortured body even higher above the plaza, as if fighting to break his chains. At last they did so, and he floated freely above the plaza.

  More applause, now almost frenzied.

  Scornfully, Moy thought they not only knew nothing about human anatomy, they seemed to know nothing of basic physics either. It was totally obvious that the volume of air displaced by his lungs was insufficient to lift his body—even without arms or legs. Only the antigrav field, carefully managed by Ettubrute, made this extraordinary spectacle possible.

  He gulped again. With no air in his lungs, only careful pumping by the pneumatic nanomachine attached to his larynx allowed him to keep talking. And he never lost his fear of how ridiculous he would look if the device failed.

  “But always, inevitably, after the last brushstroke the artist falls back to hard reality!” Moy closed his eyes, and the chill of another dose of analgesics relieved his veins.

  The lungs exploded with another burst of flame, and his body plummeted from up high. Below, the machine awaited him, deploying spikes and ridges, like the jaws of some terrible shark.

  Poe’s other terror: the pit. A skillful intertextuality, wasted on all these xenoids, completely ignorant of human culture.

  Even so, the audience shrieked.

  The fall looked accidental, but it was meticulously managed by the antigrav fields. Several spikes impaled the remains of the artist’s body. One ran through an ear. Another went in through his cheek and came out through an eye socket, popping out his right eye.

  “Looking at the external surfaces of this world of illusions is not what matters most to an artist! There’s much more than that!” Moy roared, and he felt his veins relax with the last, huge dose of analgesics. Prelude to the end.

  He smiled.

  His left eye burst from the pressure, splattering vitreous and aqueous humor, one tinted green, the other purple. Then it dangled from the optic nerve like a faded flower.

  “The essence, what no machine can imitate, is the artist’s absorption into the universal, the final annulment of the ego that he suffers in creating art!” Moy relaxed entirely.

  “Alea iacta est,” he thought, the die is cast, and he greeted the darkness.

  The nanos that
had penetrated his brain suddenly cut the supply of blood and glucose to its neurons, while hitting his major synapses with well-calculated electrical shocks. Moy sweetly lost consciousness.

  Clinically, he was already dead, though his heart continued to beat. No one in the audience had realized that what the machine was displaying to them was a cadaver. It was essential for the final act. No analgesic drug could even lessen the supreme pain of that finale.

  The pneumatic nanomachine injected air at high pressure into Moy’s larynx, modulating the horrific posthumous scream that made the vocal cords vibrate until they broke.

  Prelude to apotheosis.

  The explosive charge went off in his heart, and a fraction of a second later, the one in the corpus callosum of his brain.

  The two most important organs in the body flew to bits. The spikes and ridges of the machine fell upon the remains like hungry hyenas. They danced their frenzied choreography, mincing the remnants of the body like the teeth of some gigantic cannibal. And when there was nothing left to cut, they rose, oscillating menacingly, as if looking for their next victim.

  Moy’s recorded voice, reverberating deeply, could then be heard:

  “The world is the machine. Devouring art, it devours its creator. It always thirsts for blood, pain, and art—and there are always new artists yearning to become its food. This is life, and this is history. This is the great cycle.”

  And the machine folded up, slowly, deliberately. The lights came on and the applause exploded, more fervent than ever.

  Most of the audience left. Whispering, overwhelmed, looking eager to go back outside, back to reality.

  Kandria waited longer. With tear-filled eyes, she exchanged views, brightly at first, then forcefully, with her agent-father. She wanted to see Moy and congratulate him—it had simply been perfect.

  The Centaurian felt there was no need to overpraise the competition. Besides, this Moy wasn’t decent company for her. They might establish an emotional relationship that could distract her from her artistic path. And he was her father, and she owed him her obedience...

  They argued until Kandria, furiously disengaging from the Centaurian, ran into the crowd without a backward look. Her father-agent smiled: this was just another form of respect.

  He calmly followed her. Outside, his large purple eyes met the beady eyes of Ettubrute, and the two agents exchanged knowing looks and a shrug of the shoulders.

  Yes, human artists were very difficult to deal with. Whether it was your child or your lover-friend... You often had to be hard on them, for their own good.

  The art dealers and collectors, Cetians and members of other races, flocked to the platform like flies to the scent of a fresh cadaver. The Colossaur, cold and professional, responded to their offers and organized an auction, quickly and efficiently.

  The great canvas that served as stage, plastered with Moy’s limbs and viscera, was sprayed with epoxy resin by an automated mechanism. The fast-drying substance formed a thin, transparent layer that would protect the work from time and putrefaction.

  After a short bidding war with two grodos, an Auyar bought it for seventy thousand credits, cash. He then offered half a million credits for the machine, but Ettubrute was unshakeable. No, it wasn’t for sale. He wouldn’t even listen to proposals.

  The Auyar made another offer. Magnificent...

  Ettubrute’s little eyes shone with greed.

  Well, he’d have to confer with the artist...

  A hologram of Moy taken at the start of the performance, with a succinct biography in the Cetian syllabic alphabet, was projected in the space above the platform. The audience members who still remained, as if reluctant to leave, applauded once more. For fifteen credits, anyone interested could have a copy of the documentary. For 150, a holorecording of the entire performance.

  There were more than fifty buyers. The show was a resounding success.

  Moy, of course, only found out an hour later, once the autocloning was complete and his new body was available. Ettubrute, solicitous, gave him the whole story as he helped him from the mechanical womb hidden under the platform.

  Despite the news, Moy felt no better. He coughed repeatedly to clear the mucilaginous pseudoamniotic fluid from his lungs. His hair and body felt disgustingly sticky, and he had a horrible taste in his mouth. All his muscles were shaking. He urgently needed to shower, to eat... and to sleep.

  These cloned rebirths were wearing him out more and more.

  “Having sold very well. Your debt being paying off,” the Colossaur encouraged him. “Having very interesting Auyar offer. They pay much.”

  “Forget about it. I’m not going to Auya. I don’t trust guys who don’t show their faces, and I like my memory too much to let them erase it.” Moy shook his head, blinking to improve his vision. In spite of high-speed cloning, this business of changing bodies twice a week had its disadvantages. It always took you at least six hours to get totally used to your new anatomy.

  “Not being on Auya, being here in Ningando,” the Colossaur persisted. “For Auyar diplomatic staff. The erasing of memory being only... partial. Lasting one month the contract. Eight thousand credits per performance... not counting profits from selling canvas at end.”

  Moy whistled: that was nearly five times what he earned in a typical performance. The Auyars were loaded, for sure.

  “Well, that changes everything,” he smiled. “With those kinds of earnings, we could both retire. You told him yes, of course, we’d love to do it, I imagine, Bruiser?” He playfully slapped his pectoral plate.

  “There being one detail,” Ettubrute clarifies, almost timidly. “Requesting daily performances, and double performances weekends, or being no contract.”

  “Shit on a spaceship,” Moy muttered, gulping as he mentally calculated as quick as he could. That made nine times a week. Thirty-six deaths and resurrections in a month. At eight thousand per, plus the canvasses—it was a tempting offer. But all those autoclonings...

  All that discomfort, half the time adapting to a new body... plus the chance of brain damage from abusing the process, which wasn’t trivial.

  On the other hand—he’d be able to return to Earth a potentate, make whatever art he wanted without ever having to worry anymore about whether it sold or not.

  Two scales, one balance.

  And the scales weighed practically the same. Hard to decide.

  Without really knowing why, he thought of Jowe. Jowe never would have ended up in a situation like this, but... he wished he knew what Jowe would have done in his place.

  “You think it’s worth it, Bruiser?” He looked at Ettubrute.

  The Colossaur stared at him in turn, then shrugged. “I not risking anything. Being your life. Deciding you. Thinking that getting better price possible from Auyar? Being hard bargainers they...”

  “I’ll try, but eight thousand’s pretty good,” Moy sighed. “Hey... Did you see that girl... you know, Kandria? The mestizo girl, human and Centaurian? She didn’t wait for me?”

  Ettubrute looked at him slowly, for a long time. “No,” he finally grunted, shifting his gaze. “Leaving almost right away. Arguing with father-agent about possibility her doing something similar. Differing opinions.”

  “Oh! So she’s a plagiarist,” Moy said, and something broke inside him. Suddenly the world looked and tasted like ash. “Alright... I think I’ll take their offer, Bruiser.”

  The Colossaur lay his enormous paw delicately on his shoulder. “Moy...” It was the first time in months that he had pronounced his name. “You... you... being able taking it... so often?”

  “I’ll get used to it,” Moy replied nonchalantly, but as if from a great distance. Like a robot. “Know something, Bruiser? Life’s a piece of shit. We ought to plan something special if those Auyars are going to pay so well. Before that mestizo chick and others like her start copy
ing me. I’ll be the first, ahead of my time. That has to be made clear. All the rest are just following the path I blazed.”

  “Perhaps,” the Colossaur mused. “What having in mind?”

  “Something more... spectacular.” Moy was talking, feeling like his mouth didn’t belong to him. “Maybe use acids. Or poisons. Or nanocharges to send teeth flying through my cheeks, one by one...” He clicked his tongue. “You might try to think up something yourself, Bruiser! You know as much about human anatomy as I do, I’m sure... Oh, and you know something else, Bruiser? I think I told you one time, I had this friend on Earth, a guy named Jowe... A brilliant kid. Well, I just had a great idea: with all that money, when I go back, I’m going to find him, wherever he is... You’ll help me, won’t you, Bruiser? When it comes right down to it, you and I are in this together...”

  The Colossaur stopped walking for a moment, while Moy kept going.

  Ettubrute watched him move on, away. The artist was still talking. Excited, gesticulating, not realizing he was alone. Cutting a path through the crowd of Cetians, who stared at him in surprise. Some pointed, shaking their heads reproachfully. Others, who had possibly witnessed his performance, made way for him with respect.

  “Yes... When it comes right down to it, you and I are in this together, Moy,” the Colossaur whispered, so low that the artist, walking far ahead, never noticed that he had used perfectly correct Planetary syntax.

  Nor, of course, that his agent’s tiny pig eyes had a suspiciously moist sheen...

  November 15, 1993.

  The World Human Parliament

  Xenoid tourists who want to learn all about the political history of Earth always get the same tour: First they view the ruins of the Acropolis in Athens and the Roman Forum, then their guides take them to Geneva, proud seat of the World Human Parliament.

  The visit invariably takes place in two stages over two days.

  First day, a Sunday, they are brought to the large building where they tour the immense, empty halls. This allows them to appreciate the walls and floors of fine marble (a material found only on Earth), the gigantic holoscreens, the comfortable ergonomic desks decked out with sophisticated computer voting terminals. Visitors can also admire walls adorned with frescos by great contemporary Earth artists—allegorical representations of Truth, Justice, Virtue, and the other eternal themes of every democracy.