A Thousand Deaths

by George Alec Effinger

  He was missing something. He had left something behind and he had forgotten what it was.

  He didn't have the woman's body with him. He had left it behind, when his hands started trembling. He closed his eyes, feeling the pain in his body and the helpless sadness in his mind. He had failed again, and the only way to make it better was to go back. He had to go back, to retrace his steps until he found the body. It would cost him at least two days, and that was if he stayed clear enough to remember where he was going and why. Without the body and the note on the blouse, he might wander in the desert until he died; that was a fear that haunted him whenever he was lucid enough to remember it.

  He would have to go back. He might as well start right now. He turned his back to the hills, to the river beyond, to the house, and walked slowly and painfully back across the dry, cracked ground.

  Thirteen months after his arrival, in the late spring, Courane and Shai were working in the groon field. A light rain was falling and the sun was low on the horizon. The two men were hacking the stalks away to let the edible bulbs below the ground swell and sweeten. They had labored for a long time without saying anything, and Courane was getting tired. He stood up straight and wiped his brow. "I never thought I'd end up working on a farm," he said.

  "I didn't either," said Shai. "I was going to be an automotive engineer."

  "It didn't work out?"

  "Would I be here if it had? What did you want to be?"

  Courane rested on the long handle of his chopping blade. He thought back to his high school days. "I don't know," he said. He tried to get a clear picture of what he had been like then; it hadn't been that long ago.

  "Did you apply for college?" asked Shai.

  "I guess so," said Courane. He wiped his forehead with a grimy hand. He couldn't seem to remember what his ambitions had been.

  "It isn't important."

  Courane felt a gentle touch of doubt. "What's the date?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure. About the twelfth of Tomuary."

  That made Courane feel better. He wasn't due to notice the first symptoms for another month. It couldn't be happening already. "I wish we'd get some more recruits from Earth," he said. "There's going to be a lot of work this summer, and there's only you and me and Fletcher to handle the heavy stuff."

  "And Fletcher will be going upstairs soon."

  "Yes," said Courane. They were both quiet for a while.

  "Have you shown any signs yet?" asked Shai.

  The question flustered Courane. "No, no, of course not. I have plenty of time."

  "There isn't any fast rule about it, Sandy. Kenny lasted longer than normal, and Rachel said she's already had a few lapses."

  "I'm fine," said Courane. "I'm sure when the time comes, I'll know."

  "Yes," said Shai. "I just wanted to say that since we're all stuck here together against our will, when the time comes, I'll help you out all I can. Don't worry about having to work around the farm if you're too sick. Rachel and Nneka and I can take care of it. Klára wouldn't think of leaving the house to work out here, of course, but when you have to go upstairs, you won't need to worry that we'll starve. And I'm sure TECT will send us some more help."

  Courane stared angrily at Shai. He didn't like the discussion at all. "What are you trying to do?" he cried.

  "Take it easy, Sandy. I'm just trying to make it less painful for you. I'm trying to take a little of the burden off your shoulders. Your time is coming, too, and you know it. You have to face the facts."

  Courane threw his blade to the ground. "But you don't have to rush me into the infirmary before it's time. You sound like you want to get rid of me. The hell with you." He turned and strode back toward the house. He didn't pay attention to Shai's anguished denial.

  Months before, Courane had responded to what had been, in effect, a sentence of slow execution by working even more tirelessly at the tect, fishing for some clue that might lead to a miracle cure. TECT gave every indication that it knew what Courane was doing. It seemed to get a kind of peculiar enjoyment from mocking him.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Do you think if you work hard enough, you'll prevent your own death?**

  "I've got to try," he said.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Haven't you understood anything? The viroids are in you already. They're sitting in your nerve cells, lodged in your brain, busily making new viroids. Already your body is attacking the cells they've altered, and your nervous system is beginning to resemble a rusted-out automobile. Whole neural pathways will be destroyed or damaged, synapses will begin to fire in a hit-or-miss, unpredictable way, areas of your brain will be ruined or isolated. You will fall apart like a tower of cards in slow motion. You will die, staring and stupid, the way Zofia, Carmine, Iola, and Markie died. There's nothing you can do about it**

  "There has to be something I can do to beat you."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  You speak as if we were in some kind of competition. How dull. You cannot even win at cribbage**

  "There has to be something that will stop the viroids. Something that will prevent them from getting into the nerve cells, or prevent them from changing the cell membranes, or from replicating. Medicine can take care of regular viruses, can't it? Why not these viroids?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Because there's nothing to attack. They have no protein coat**

  "Then we can chop up the DNA strands."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  And decimate your nerve cells at the same time**

  "But I haven't even shown a single sign of D syndrome. Maybe I won't catch it. Maybe I'm immune."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  They are called "slow viruses" because their effects do not show up for months or years after the initial infection. You have been on Planet D only six months. You will begin to show signs of the disease toward the middle of next March, and you will die sometime around a year from this October**

  Courane stared at the words for a long time. "What would that be according to our calendar?" he asked at last.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  First symptoms—Early Chuckuary 125. Estimated date of death—15 Claudy 125. Make your preparations now. Otherwise you will be a burden and a gross inconvenience to your friends**

  "There has to be a way out," he said.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Don't waste your time. More to the point, don't waste the time of TECT in the name of the Representative. To do so will be considered Contempt

  Courane switched off the console. The tect's red ADVISE light lit, but he ignored it. That was exactly what he felt for the machine: contempt. It was just another way of not admitting his own mortality.

  Six

  Courane was sitting on the plank fence that enclosed the pasture. The sun had set and the cool night had deepened until he could see nothing but black shapes and bright stars. The blerds lay in the grass motionless, making no sound. Were they aware of him? Did the difference between night and day mean anything to them, or were they too stupid even to notice?

  "You didn't eat any supper."

  Courane turned around. A man was standing next to him. He, too, stared out across the pasture. Courane didn't reply.

  "Are you hungry?" asked the man.

  "No," said Courane.

  "Did you eat lunch this afternoon?"

  "I don't remember."

  "I don't think you did. I brought you a sandwich. Here."

  Courane looked into the man's face. "Thank you," he said. He took the sandwich and held it. He forgot about it almost immediately.

  "Do you hurt?" asked the man.

  "No."

  "That's good. Why don't you come inside? It's getting chilly out here."

  "Come inside?"

  "Yes. Come back to the house. We'll play a game of chess."

  Courane looked back at the huge stupid animals. "What do you suppose they think about all day?" he said.

  "I don't know. What do you think a
bout all day?"

  Courane shook his head. "Who are you" he asked.

  "Shai."

  "Sheldon?"

  "I never met Sheldon. He died before I came here."

  "Sheldon died?"

  "Yes, Sandy."

  "Daan?"

  "Daan died last month."

  "Then who are you?"

  "My name is Shai. Is there anything I can get you?"

  Courane jumped down from the fence. "No," he said. "I think I'll go home now. I'm getting tired."

  "Okay. We'll go back to the house."

  "Does my mother know I'm here?" asked Courane.

  Shai took a deep breath, but couldn't find an answer.

  The pale green glow of the tect's screen lit Courane's face, and the shadows made a grotesque mask of his features. "I don't think I can get the hang of this, Daan," he said.

  "Sure you will, Sandy. I didn't know any more about biology when I started than you do."

  TECT searched its memory and answered their question. They had followed another blind alley. Not a single bacterium or microbe on Earth caused any condition similar to D syndrome.

  "What else could it be?" asked Courane.

  "I don't know," said Daan.

  Courane typed in a question to the machine: If no bacterium or microbe is responsible, what does that leave?

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Many possibilities, including chronic dietary deficiency in some essential nutritional component. Virus infection. Congenital disorder. Poisoning by chemicals or radiation**

  "All those will be more difficult to check out," said Courane.

  "Even though I turned this over to you, I have a few more months before I'm entirely useless. I'll help you as much as I can."

  Courane looked at his friend. "You know all the shortcuts, and it's taking me forever to learn my way."

  "I'm glad to help. I have my own selfish reasons. If we can put an end to this colony by finding the answer to D syndrome, then my life will have meant something. It will help me go out with a sense of my own worth. By helping you, I'm putting a stamp of approval on myself."

  "Don't worry, Daan, we'll beat it."

  "You'll beat it. From now on, I'm just here to give you encouragement."

  "Well, that's the whole house."

  "Kind of nice in its own way," said Courane.

  "It's good that you like it. You're going to spend a long time here, so you better get used to it." Sheldon had shown Courane all the rooms in the house and made a little speech at each stop—here is the tect room with the medic box, here is the kitchen, here is your room, that's my room, the lavatory is down there, these steps go up to the infirmary, we'll take a look in there later. Now they had left the house and were walking across the barnyard.

  "What's that?" asked Courane. He pointed to a red and brown bird about the size of a large dog. It had small eyes the color of new grass and made a sound like water in the pipes in the middle of the night. It waddled around the yard, looking for something to eat.

  "Smudgeon," said Sheldon.

  "Smudgeon," said Courane. "Does it lay eggs?"

  "Sort of," said Sheldon. "You'll see. We eat the females."

  "What are they like?"

  Sheldon made a face. "They have the taste and texture of raw oysters, only bitter instead of salty."

  Courane sighed. "I suppose I'll get used to it."

  "Maybe you'll have better luck than I did."

  They walked around the barn and took a peek at the blerds. Courane wondered what kind of drunken god could have put together this menagerie. "Thanks for taking the time to show me around," said Courane.

  "My pleasure," said Sheldon. "We have a philosophy here: the harder we work for each other, the easier our lives are. This colony has learned that the hard way in a hundred and twenty-four years."

  "Do you ever get people who aren't so generous?"

  "Sure," said Sheldon, spitting at an ick that was sliding its way toward the blerd pasture. "But after a while, those people learn that they just can't make it on their own. When they finally get the right idea, when the truth dawns on them about just where they are and what the future is going to be like, they change pretty fast. All of them; I've never seen it fail. Pretty soon you're working in the field and one of these bastards sees you sweating and runs over to mop your face for you. Suddenly they can't do enough for everybody. They get the fear of TECT in them. To tell you the truth, they're easier to get along with when they're selfish. It's annoying to have your face mopped every five minutes."

  Courane didn't understand Sheldon's point. "Will we go up to the third floor now?"

  "Later," said Sheldon. "Let's see what Kenny's doing first."

  They went into the barn. Courane was astonished by the smell.

  Courane sat in the parlor eating nugpeas and drinking beer with Fletcher. Molly and Kenny were playing casino on the floor. Rachel and Arthur were putting up the Halloween decorations; they had filled a large tub with water in preparation for a fishfruit-bobbing contest. Goldie was carving a jack-o'-lantern out of soufmelon. She was saving the fibrous insides of the things to feed to Feh, her pet. Feh was an ick; Goldie was trying to train it to signal her in case of emergency. Icks made only the tiniest gurgling sound and it would take Feh a good portion of the day to slide up to its mistress and grease a warning on her foot. No one but Goldie thought there was any hope for the watch-ick, but the others were happy that she had a new interest.

  "Do you ever wonder how your family is doing back on Earth?" asked Courane.

  "No," said Fletcher, "do you?"

  "Sure. All the time."

  "You don't even know my family, Cap."

  "I mean I wonder about my own family."

  Fletcher swallowed some beer. "That makes sense," he said.

  "I wish I could find out how they are. I wish I could let them know how I'm doing."

  Fletcher regarded Courane with narrowed eyes. "How are you doing, Cap?"

  Courane shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

  "Do you miss things? Real food, nice clothes, a little action?"

  "Sure," said Courane, "but not that much. I get lonely, though."

  "Lonely? You have all of us."

  Courane seemed embarrassed. "You don't understand. I wish sometimes that I could go somewhere to see new faces, strangers. There's no chance to meet new friends here, to have an adventure."

  "You should do what I do," said Fletcher.

  "What's that?"

  "I have a pen pal."

  Courane was astonished. "TECT lets you talk to someone on Earth?"

  "Sure," said Fletcher. "You can, too. Just ask TECT."

  "I didn't know I could do that."

  Fletcher drank some more beer, finishing his mug. "Let me get some more of this and we'll go find you a new friend. Boy or girl?"

  Courane thought for a second. "Girl, I suppose."

  Later, in the tect room, Fletcher told Courane what to say. He typed in his request for a correspondent, female, European, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Fletcher urged him to narrow the field even more by describing the prospective pen pal's hair, eye color, height, weight, intelligence, and other measurements, but Courane didn't want to appear fussy.

  **COURANE, Sandor —ExtT— Excar Ep Er IV

  M232-86-059-41Maj

  08:38:37 9 April 7 YT TECTGreet

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Notification of approval of application for interstellar correspondence (Details follow) (Conditions follow).

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  TECT in the name of the Representative cannot express how marvelous it is that you've decided to request a pen pal here on Earth. That is a very hopeful sign, COURANE, Sandor, one that indicates that you have retained your emotional attachment to the world of your origin while forging a new life for yourself at the frontier of man's knowledge and the pit of his fears.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Because TECT in the name of the Representati
ve feels that such a correspondence will be both therapeutic for you and a tangible indication of the kind of thing you're working to regain, your request has been granted. Please, if you must insist on making long tedious exclamations of appreciation, try to do so with taste and dignity. TECT in the name of the Representative finds nothing more tiring than listening to endless recitations of thankfulness from the billions of people who realize that they can never hope to repay one- tenth of all the benefits given them by TECT in the name of the Representative. They seem to believe that TECT in the name of the Representative has infinite resources, which in plain fact is not true, and that a little groveling in front of a tect is somehow an adequate compensation for all these spectacular gifts and blessings. Nevertheless, it is probably some kind of mysterious and necessary drive in people to abase themselves in return for trinkets.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Therefore, enter your numerous declarations of praise and gratitude**

  "Really, thank you very much," said Courane.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  You can't be serious**

  "It wants more," said Fletcher.

  Courane looked bewildered. "I'm deeply grateful," he said. "I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is that you've permitted me to correspond with someone on Earth. I've hoped that you'd grant me this favor, and now I will be indebted to you until my dying day. You're the most generous—"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Yes, yes, it's all been said before. COURANE, Sandor, you have no imagination. But we learned that with the SPACE SPY episode, didn't we?

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Your new correspondent is—

  WISSWEDE, ElseRepE Dis4 Sec27

  Loc83-Jad-252

  F828-74-934-54Maj

  She is twenty years old, a student at the University of Jakarta, from the town of Jadwigadorf, less than one hundred miles from Greusching. She has long brown hair, brown eyes of a depth and sensitivity that astonishes the stranger on first making her acquaintance, a nice figure, very pretty face, charming laugh, and a mind so sharp that her instructors are jealous of her accomplishments. She enjoys music and Impressionist art, has a German shepherd named Blondi, and thinks that shallow men are worse than strep throat. Her plans for the future include becoming a world-renowned poet and making someone a perfect wife and mother.