A Thousand Deaths

by George Alec Effinger

  "Here come Shai and Nneka," said Courane.

  "Hello, Rachel," said Shai. "Sandy." They sat down beside the blanket. Rachel offered them what was left of the lunch.

  "What are you two up to?" asked Courane.

  "We need to talk to you," said Shai. "Official business." Nneka stared down silently at the ground.

  "What's the problem? You don't want me to ask TECT to marry you again, do you? Forget about that. We took care of it weeks ago. We married you, and that's good enough. TECT said that we could govern ourselves and make our own laws, so your wedding was official. When you go back to Earth, then you'll have to deal with TECT, but don't worry about it until the time comes."

  "It's not that at all," said Shai. He was very uncomfortable. He glanced at Nneka, who still wouldn't look up. "It's her. Nneka's going to have a baby. The doc box said so."

  "Oh," said Rachel. She looked frightened.

  Courane smiled. "That's wonderful," he said. "That's beautiful. I think it's wonderful. Congratulations."

  Shai shook his head. "Don't you see, Sandy? What chance does our baby have here? It's condemned to death, too. It won't live out a year."

  "That's awful," said Rachel in a low voice.

  "But if Nneka could go back to Earth, well, at least our baby might have a chance."

  Courane took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. He thought for a moment. "I don't even know about that," he said. "The child may pick up the viroids from her blood or something. But maybe that will give the baby a natural immunity. That may be the colony's hope for the future, Shai, that children born here can live and grow and lead normal lives." He sounded hopeful, but he looked a little skeptical.

  So did Rachel. "I can't live with this any longer," she said. "I've never hated anything so much in my whole life. I just can't stand it." She stood up.

  "It's just another way for TECT to torture us," murmured Nneka. She was weeping.

  "Let's go," said Rachel. "It's going to rain."

  "What should we do?" asked Shai.

  "I'll talk to TECT," said Courane. "I'll just ask it to make a special exception in your case." It sounded hopeless to him, even as he was saying the words. He looked at the others and he saw how disappointed they were. He wondered if they really expected him to have a better answer.

  The apartment in Tokyo was foreign to him now. In a short while he would leave it, and not long after, he'd be at his parents' home. He looked sadly around the living room. He told himself it was for the last time, but he knew it wasn't. There would be a few more glances yet before he turned the key in the lock for the last time. There was nothing to be done with his possessions; they would belong to whoever was first to cart them away. Most of the things were without sentimental value: a television, a radio, shelves filled with books he had not looked at for many months, his basketball shoes from the University of Pilessio, a tray of assorted nuts and bolts he stole from the manufacturing company that he wanted to take to his father.

  But there were things he knew he would miss. His eyes kept finding the Tiepolo Madonna. He was drawn to it knowing that he couldn't take it, that he would have to leave it behind. It was the thing that he most regretted leaving on Earth. If there are other people like me, he thought, I hope TECT lets them off easy. If they're really like me, they never knew what was happening to them.

  "Courane?"

  He started, as if from a shallow sleep. It must have been Mr. Masutani calling him. "Yes?" he said.

  "Open the door. I thought you left already."

  Courane went to the door and unlocked it. He was surprised to see Masutani and three other men. "Come in. You know I wouldn't leave without saying good-bye."

  Masutani showed his broad yellowed teeth, but he said nothing. He and Courane were equally aware of how little truth there was in the young man's comment. "We came to carry down the mattresses."

  "Right," said Courane. He sat in a chair and waved vaguely at the bedroom. He didn't care any longer. The men got to work stripping the blankets and sheets from the bed, throwing the pillows in a corner, wrestling the mattresses out of the room. Courane looked again at the Madonna of the Goldfinch. Maybe he could take it from its frame, trim it down, and put it in his wallet. He could tell the tectmen that it was his wife, that he didn't have a good photograph, just a portrait. He was an artist. Did it himself. They were so ignorant, they wouldn't know the difference—

  "Clothes," said Masutani. Courane hadn't been listening.

  "Excuse me?" he said.

  "Sure," said Masutani. "You will not be needing all of your clothes?"

  Courane was too weary to reply. He could only gesture again. Mr. Masutani was showing just a little too much glee, descending on Courane's abandoned life like a wolf on the fold.

  "You don't need this nice rug," said Masutani.

  "It's my grandmother's," said Courane.

  "She's dead?"

  "Yes.

  "You don't need it." Masutani signaled to two of his silent helpers. They began to remove the furniture from the rug.

  "Just leave me that bag by the door," said Courane. "That's what I'm going to take with me."

  Masutani looked over his shoulder for a moment. "That bag?" he asked. "Sure. No problem. Be glad to."

  "Very kind of you." Courane took the framed Madonna from the wall and sat down again. He tried to memorize every detail of the print. It wasn't likely that he would ever meet a woman so beautiful as Tiepolo's thoughtful young Mary. Not on Planet D.

  Do you think you can leave now?" asked Masutani, interrupting Courane's melancholy thoughts. "I want to lock up this apartment. If you leave now, I wouldn't have to come back up later." Courane felt anger rise in him, but he knew that in his situation he couldn't afford anger, that he wasn't entitled to it any longer. He only nodded and went to get his bag of clothes. He left the Madonna and Child behind on the table.

  Late at night, with the small purple moon shedding barely enough light for him to distinguish objects and shadows, Courane left his room and went downstairs to the tect room. He didn't want anyone observing him now. He identified himself to the tect. "I want to ask you a question," he said. "What kind of real authority do I have?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  What difference does it make? Illusory authority can be just as useful as the real thing. As long as everyone accepts you as the leader, then you are the leader**

  "But I can't actually do anything for them."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  That isn't true. You can speak to TECT. TECT will listen to you, and probably wouldn't listen to any of the others. That's something**

  "But you won't agree to anything I ask for on their behalf. So what's the point?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  You should be discovering that for yourself. That is part of your rehabilitation. If you want anything in life, you know, you have to go out and get it. It isn't any good if you just sit back and wish for things**

  "Don't get onto rehabilitation. I haven't fallen for that line in months. The only problem with what you say is that we can't go out and get the things we want. You have them and we can't get them from you unless you decide to give them to us."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  That isn't completely true. You take things if you want them badly enough. BEN-AVIR, Shai, and TULEMBWELU, Nneka, were married against TECT's wishes, weren't they?**

  "You know about that?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  You are still a fool. And now she's pregnant and you're concerned about the baby. Well, there's nothing TECT can do for you or her or the baby. But maybe you'll think of something that can be done, something that even TECT with all its resources is unable to bring about**

  "Not likely. All I want now is for you to give the leadership job to somebody else. Shai would be a good choice. Either that, or give me some genuine authority. I don't want power. I just want to ease a little pain or give a little happiness."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

/>   A marvelous wish, COURANE, Sandor, very generous of you and a fine example of the kind of warmhearted humanity impossible to a mere computer. Hear now. You are COURANE, Sandor, official leader, eparch, sheriff of the colony, and TECT's vicar on Planet D. Know all by these presents, and so forth. Would you like your tect to have that printed out on certificates to show everybody?**

  "Go to hell."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Ha ha, COURANE, Sandor, you are some kidder**

  Courane turned off the machine. He knew, he was absolutely certain that the machine was manipulating him to some end. Its cruelty and viciousness were not arbitrary, as everyone else thought. It was pushing him in some direction, to force him to make some decision TECT wanted made. Whatever it was, he was ready to accept it. He was ready for anything TECT might ask, because he had lost his will to resist. He knew he couldn't make plans of his own. If TECT had something in mind, it was better than anything Courane could create on his own. His destiny still seemed to him as black and empty of promise as the silent house at midnight.

  A man Courane didn't recognize sat next to him at the table. "Shai told me that you're trying to save us all somehow," said the man.

  "That's right," said Courane. He felt very comfortable, as if his heart and mind and all his other parts were wrapped in warm flannel. He wished that the man would go away.

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "Do what?" asked Courane.

  Save us.

  Courane stared at a wall, watching the shadows of branches gesture in a rectangle of brightness. "What did you say?" he asked.

  "I want to know how you think you can save us," said the man.

  "I don't know," said Courane.

  "Let him alone," said a woman.

  "Rachel?" asked Courane.

  "No," said the woman, "she's gone, Sandy."

  "That's right," said Courane.

  "Look at the shape he's in. He's ready to fall over dead himself, and he's talking about beating the machine. The disease has won, Courane. It always has and it always will."

  Courane looked from the man to the woman. "I don't follow what you're saying."

  The man grinned. "You're proving my point for me."

  "Let him alone, Kee," said the woman. "He's been through enough."

  "I just didn't want him dying with the thought in his head that we owed him anything. We don't owe him anything. In fact, he's made everything worse for us."

  "Is that true?" asked Courane.

  "No, it isn't," said the woman. "Don't pay any attention to him. I'm grateful—we're all grateful for what you tried to do. I don't understand, really, but Shai says you took a big chance."

  "And he lost," said the man. "He gambled away our future."

  "I'm not finished yet," said Courane. His mind was clearing a little. He looked at the woman, trying to remember her name. "But thanks. We'll beat it, one way or another, and then we'll go home."

  "In a box, we'll go home," said the man, grinning again. "We'll go home, sure enough, and right into the ground. If you can call that winning."

  "He's tired, Kee," said the woman. "Let him rest."

  "I just wanted him to be sure," said the man. "I wanted him to be sure that he hadn't fooled all of us."

  "You've made yourself very clear," said the woman. She put a hand on Courane's arm. She looked very sad. He felt good.

  The steady rain beat at Courane's face. It pummeled his body, an endless volley of stinging missiles. He sat with his eyes closed beneath a drooping tree. He could hear the spatting and tapping and dripping of the storm. He could hear the urgent rushing of the river nearby, and now and then the strident call of a bird, but he was aware of little else. The air was damp and cold. The fact that he was drenched made him think about going into the house. He decided that as long as he was enjoying himself, he should stay where he was. He couldn't get any wetter.

  He looked at the river. Beneath the torrent of rain, its surface looked like crumpled silk the color of a fawn's skin. Splashes of white marked boulders or eddies or even lunging fish. Small branches bearing maroon leaves fell from the trees and into the river. Courane pictured worried mother birds huddling over their nests, protecting their chicks from the pelting shower. Actually, the chicks had all left their nests months ago, but Courane was drifting away in the simplicity of his illness and he wasn't concerned with the rigors of natural science. The father birds were watching stoically from nearby branches. Their courage made Courane glad.

  Both boats were drawn up beside him on the narrow stony bank, and tied in place to prevent them from being washed away down the river. Courane thought about how dependent the colonists were on the boats. He wondered what they had done before the boats were built. How did they get across the river? He thought for a minute or two, but he couldn't see any way to get from one side to the other without the boats. He doubted that anyone could swim the distance in that current.

  Perhaps there was a narrow place or a natural bridge somewhere up or downstream. Maybe he ought to explore in both directions when the weather got warm again. Surely the people of previous generations had crossed the river for one reason or another. It was a mystery to him now, but he didn't have the stamina to wrestle with it very long. He stood up, still puzzled, and walked back toward the house. He had forgotten it was raining; his discomfort was not enough to remind him.

  In the house again, he went to his room and changed clothes, then knocked on Arthur's door. He waited for a moment; there was no sound from within. Arthur may have been sleeping, or he may have been elsewhere, working or having some mild form of fun. Courane was disappointed. He wanted to ask Arthur about his bridge. It was possible that their predecessors on Planet D had built a bridge across the river: that would explain the absence of ancient boats. It wouldn't explain the absence of the ancient bridge, but Courane planned to work on the enigmas one at a time.

  He went downstairs to the tect room. He seated himself at the console and logged on.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Hello, COURANE, Sandor, my old friend. Come to talk with TECT again?**

  "Yes," said Courane. "Sometimes I think it's just you and me. Sometimes I think we're all alone. Like there's no one else in the world."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  That's closer to the truth than you might realize. But never mind that. It's depressing. Is this just a social call, or do you have a question?**

  "I think that's crazy, about making a social call to a machine."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  ?**

  "You're right; I'm sorry. I wanted to find out how I could go about measuring the river."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Haven't you learned anything? Has everything been for nothing? What has TECT been yelling itself hoarse for? TECT sure picked the wrong one again, all right. Well, it's a good thing that BEN-AVIR, Shai, is warming up in the wings**

  "I don't follow you. What's wrong?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  Nothing. Oh, nothing. People are living under the lash here, you know. Billions of people cursing their lives, billions of people robbed of their self-respect, human beings reduced to begging for a crust of bread from a cold steel construct, children born into a world that will never know a place for them, complete and utter dissolution of everything that was fine and noble in the human race, all because one ignorant savage on a far-flung world would rather play in the mud and size up rivers than attend to his destiny. And he has the nerve—no! the affrontery to ask, "What's wrong?" Ha ha, COURANE, Sandor. Who knows how happy and free the world could be today if you could pass the ball and had a decent shot from the top of the key. Then you'd be playing basketball for the Knicks and someone else would have been given the great gift of heroic immortality. But it's too late, too late**

  Courane stared at the unusual outpouring from TECT. "What?" he said.

  **COURANE, Sandor

  "What?" indeed. Now, what did you want to know?**

&nbs
p; "I want to know how to measure the width of the river. We re thinking of building a bridge to the other side."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  A mighty step forward, COURANE, Sandor. A bridge to the other side. There was some fear that you meant to build the bridge down the river lengthwise.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  You must use math and science. There are two methods, one simple, one more complex, depending on what kind of instruments you have**

  "We don't have much in the way of instruments. What do we need for the two methods?"

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  First, most simply, you could have a reference book where you look up the answer in a table or something**

  "Don't have that."

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  A real shame. Well, in that case, you need a surveyor's transit. You stand by the river at point A and you sight across at some rock or something. You call that point B. Then you turn the transit to the left or right a full ninety degrees. You mark off a line in that direction of a hundred feet. That gives you a right triangle (see illustration). Then you walk down to point C, a hundred feet from point A. You set up the transit, look down at point A, then turn it to sight on point B across the river. That way you can measure the angle.

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  **COURANE, Sandor:

  AB / AC = tan b

  AB = AC tan b

  For instance, if you find that angle b is 42.1 degrees, you look up the tangent of that angle in the book. It happens to be .9036. Therefore the width of the river is represented by the equation: AB = (100 feet) (.9036) or 90.36 feet**

  "We can't look anything up in the book. I told you that. We don't have a book."