Tides From the New Worlds

by Tobias S. Buckell

  The airlock jerked and hissed steam, revealing passengers. The second set of airlock doors behind them had a colorful relief carving of Satyanarayana, lord of protection, fourth hand held upward in blessing.

  “Sah, here, Sah, here,” the call went out as rickshaw drivers began to try and draw the attention of passengers. They surged past, obscuring my view.

  “Lowry,” I shouted, shoving forward, spotting the thin but well dressed white man in the multi-racial crowd. “Sah Lowry, here.” Lowry with his bodyguard, Ashwatthama. Ashwatthama glowered at me. Lowry smiled. He paused before mounting the rickshaw to pat my shoulder. He’d cut his silver hair and grown a trimmed beard since I’d last seen him.

  The rickshaw shook as they both sat down.

  “He’s a small man to be pulling rickshaws,” Ashwatthama grumbled. “I have brothers who could carry you home quicker.”

  Lowry said nothing.

  I leaned on the right pole and turned the rickshaw, straining against the weight of the two men. Ashwatthama in particular was a big man, over six feet tall and fat. He weighed a hundred pounds on Kalikuata. On Loki, my birthworld, he would weigh two hundred and seventy.

  Such is the way of different worlds.

  I rocked the rickshaw back, then threw myself forward. With a few straining steps the rickshaw gained momentum. Once I got going in the low gravity it wasn’t hard to keep speed. Stopping wasn’t so easy as the momentum of the rickshaw still overpowered me. It was harder for my feet to stay on the ground due to the low gravity. Because of this I often tried to get smaller men as my passengers.

  “See,” Lowry said to Ashwatthama, as I sidestepped and passed around a stopped rickshaw. “He does good.”

  That was the last I heard, as Lowry then waved his hand and invoked a silencing device around them both. I was left with with noise of clattering rickshaws, shouts, and the snatches of conversation from the streets we passed through.

  It was a better job than the chemical factories in Loki, where I submitted to sterilization for work. Where I was told: you will work to expand Loki’s resources. You will not strain our world’s resources. You will not reproduce.

  I knew Kalikuata would eventually kill me too. Better to die here, I thought, than to be disfigured by some chemical. Or watch shift matrons die cough by bloody cough.

  On Kalikuata women walked around with broods of thin little children. Humanity packed the streets. And I was fighting to get out, and leave this world as well. Even here, I still felt trapped.

  • • •

  Kalikuata was a giant spinning can, like Loki only smaller. Inside I could look up and around at the four sections of our artificial world; Durga directly above, Kali further forward. Saraswate’s city spires rose far off in front of me, just out of sight, and Uma crowded all around. The muddy brown Ganga river split them all like a muddy rainbow over my head. Its tributary, Parvati, girdled the cyclinder of Kalikuata.

  I dodged holy animals in the streets, bumped around other rickshaws and tried not to get hit by powered vehicles. As I pulled the two men over the river Parvati on a wooden bridge, I slipped on a wet mound of dung. I pulled myself up before being run over by my own rickshaw.

  Out of the slums of Uma, we came to the edges of the Saraswati section, where the houses had courtyards, and the traffic thinned out. Shiny bubble-shaped hydrogen cars zipped around us.

  I stopped just outside the gates of Lowry’s house. My breath fogged the air. I could tell that my whole body would hurt tonight.

  “Go ahead and open the gates,” Lowry ordered Ashwatthama.

  “Sah.”

  The rickshaw shook from Ashwatthama leaping to the ground. He stooped through a small wooden door. The gates shook themselves open, and I picked up the poles to trot into the courtyard.

  Lowry stepped off the rickshaw.

  “Andy,” he said. “Your payment?”

  He stood too close to me. I began breathe a little harder. I looked around, but didn’t see Ashwatthama anywhere.

  “You are a very good looking young man,” Lowry said.

  If I ran I would lose the rickshaw. And I couldn’t get over the gates anyway. Lowry put his hand on my shoulder holding a wad of bills, put his other to my stomach, and ran his fingers down to my inner thigh.

  I should run, I thought. Lowry closed his eyes and sighed. He grabbed my crotch. His eyes fluttered open as he didn’t find what he was expecting.

  “I must leave.” I said, taking the money from his hand on my shoulder. I picked the poles up over our heads, and turned the rickshaw away from him.

  I walked the rickshaw over to the gate.

  “Will you let me go, Mr. Lowry?” I asked over my shoulder.

  Lowry nodded.

  “Ashwatthama, let him...” Lowry shook his head. “Just open the gates.”

  The gates shivered open, and I bolted out, almost getting hit by another rickshaw. I hoped to god, any of them, that the bug in the rickshaw picked up something. I wanted to be done with Lowry, he made my skin crawl.

  • • •

  Two Loki-men stood outside my small hut. They pulled a sliver of wood out from the floor; their bug. The red-haired man, Donavan, sat on my wooden bench. His boots rested on my sleeping pallet, muddying my sheet.

  “Nothing,” he said, in response to the look on my face. “They talked about nothing.”

  My shoulders slumped.

  “I don’t want to pull Lowry around,” I said.

  Donovan stood up. His crisp black suit seemed out of place in my mud floored hut.

  “We paid to ship you here. We found you this job,” Donavan said.

  “Because I had dark skin,” I spat. “And all your agents are fair-skinned. It doesn’t matter, anyway: he knows I’m a woman now.” I stalked over and pulled up my sheet, shaking the clumps of mud from it with sharp snaps. “He won’t want to use me any more.”

  Donavan moved closer to me.

  “We have a local man for Mr. Lowry’s tastes. He’ll plant a bug. We want you to hand him over to Mr. Lowry.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “What do I say?”

  Donovan smiled and pulled out a slate. He scrolled down documents dimly displayed in the middle of the piece of clear plastic until he found what he wanted.

  “We’ll coach you,” he said.

  And they did. They ran me through every single type of response Lowry could offer. They did it all night, with tight smiles on their professional faces, until I made the call for Donavan.

  I smiled, ignoring the men and looking at the rotted wood that was the single window to my hut. The early morning rays shone through the hinges.

  “Hello Mr. Lowry,” I said. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I... think I have something that would interest you.”

  I listened to Lowry pause on the other end.

  “Go on,” he said.

  I gave him the name, the story, the price, and Donavan tapped his foot and smiled at me from across the hut.

  “Good,” Donavan said when I cut the connection. I felt used, and hated every damned freckle on his cheeks. We locked stares for a moment. “If you want to get off this world, you’ll do as we say.” He smiled and motioned his men to leave. “See you tomorrow, Andrea.”

  As the door shut I realized that my whole body ached. I leaned against the wall and groaned.

  • • •

  Eventually I picked up two buckets from by the door and walked out. A bath would be good. Then maybe I could bring out some of my clothes and a wig, put on makeup, and go out into the town as a woman. Going as a man meant less hassle, but I wanted to feel pretty. Something I hadn’t done in the last year breaking my back on rickshaws, doing the bidding of Donovan and his masters back on Loki.

  I let the buckets bang against my thighs as I approached the well. A line of women lined up, waiting to get to the faucet and fill their own buckets. The dirt road turned muddy under my feet as I inched closer, and kids weaved through the crowd.

 
; The women in line chatted, filling the air with friendly chat. I enjoyed the sense of community, and for a second, wished I were here with children of my own. But the moment passed.

  And how would I support children anyway? These woman were only allowed to work in certain roles. Only men were allowed to pull rickshaws, though on this world, women could do just as well. I proved that daily. If I had children, I could not keep my disguise. Even now these women did not talk to me, and moved aside to let me get water. A form of power that I didn’t want.

  I walked back towards my hut with full buckets, focusing on the way they pulled down on my tired arms. I paid little attention to the world around me.

  A heavy arm grabbed and pulled me into an alley between a rickety two story set of apartments and a bar. I dropped the two buckets, the water sloshing out onto the thirsty ground. I tried to pull away. Ashwatthama’s angry face looked down at me from over his beard.

  “Who were those men?” he hissed.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said, trying to twist free.

  “I don’t believe you. You are a fraud. And a woman. I will tell every rickshaw driver about your lie. They’ll beat you sick.”

  I bit his forearm and he hit me in the face. I shreiked and yanked at his unyielding arm, kicking and trying to poke his eyes. He hollered and let me go. I sat down in the mud. A team of women with long sticks, brooms I realized, surrounded Ashwatthama and beat him back.

  “Are you okay, boy?” they asked me. “Come with us.”

  I stumbled up as Ashwatthama pushed through and grabbed my shirt.

  He tugged hard and it ripped. My breasts, unbound, were exposed. I wrapped my arms around my chest and ran with away with the woman. I heard them murmuring to each other as we ran; “The boy is a woman.”

  • • •

  We hid in a small apartment room up a flight of rickety stairs. The woman who stayed in it introduced herself as Ramani. She had a nose ring that glinted in the room’s dim light. I saw four sleeping pallets against the wall. I looked around and realized a large family lived in these two rooms.

  Ramani’s youngest daughter approached me bearing a tray of small cookies with bright sugar frosting patterns.

  “You’re too kind, I can’t,” I started to say. But from the look in their eyes I knew it would be worse to refuse the food than to eat it.

  Ramani handed me a bright yellow sari.

  “Your shirt is ripped,” she said.

  I took the sari and held it. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Ramani smiled. She took out a pitcher of water.

  “You are hurt here,” she said, and dabbed at where Ashwatthama hit me in the face. I relaxed and allowed her to clean my face. Her eldest daughter, just as graceful as her mother, served me tea. One of the women who had saved me peeked in. She helped wrap the sari around me when I began to fumble with the wide strip of cloth.

  “That man has left,” she said. “Will you be okay on your own? You are welcome to stay as long as you need.”

  Ramani handed me the cloth that had bound my chest. I slipped it under the sari.

  “Thank you, no.” I stood up on slightly wobbly legs. I couldn’t take more of their hospitality. Already I felt like an undeserving thief. Just outside the door I turned around and looked in at the tiny, but neatly kept, room. “Thank you,” I said again. I didn’t know what else to say. I was dazed.

  They waved goodbye from the door: brightly colored clothes contrasting the khaki colored walls.

  • • •

  I suspected Ashwatthama would be waiting by my hut. When I saw that he was, I turned away. I walked throughout Uma’s streets, hardly noticing the throngs of people pressing me against either side.

  Strong curry smells wafted from the carts by the sides. Handrawn signs advertised curries, breads, and meats. The fried chicken smelled heavenly. I bought a heavily curried piece, holding it between rhoti bread. I ate it as I walked. Without the money in my apartment, I felt trapped. I had become familiar with that feeling too well over the past.

  I took a few deep breaths. A woman and her children passed in front of me, only her eyes visible, the rest of her hidden by layers of red and gold cloth. You could hide artillery under there, I thought.

  What was I to do tonight? I wondered.

  A small child in his mother’s arms bawled. I could see the bones under his skin. His mother shushed him. I walked over to the pair and handed them the rest of my rhoti and chicken.

  I would do something, I thought. I had to do something. Somewhere this morning the graciousness of the people I was living with had overwhelmed me.

  The mistake I made in the past years was thinking that I could run away. This was the thought I carried with me as I wandered through Uma.

  • • •

  Well before the right time I got ready to cross the bridge over the Parvati into the Saraswati section. In a few hours I knew Lowry would be seated at a table with white plastic tables and thatch umbrellas. A pretty young man would be seated several tables away, and it was my job to introduce them.

  Donavan would be watching and waiting from inside the tea shop we were to meet outside of.

  Wherever you lived there were Donavans and Lowrys. Men who took what they wanted through power, intrigue, or force. If I wanted to free myself, I had to start here, where I lived. I couldn’t keep promising myself a distant freedom that would come if I moved to another world, or as time passed.

  And I couldn’t leave those women who had saved me. I wanted to join that community, a sense of family I had lost in running away.

  Halfway over the small bridge over the Parvati I stopped. I leaned on the rail by the edge, and looked down into the muddy water. A group of teenagers played by the banks, and women washed laundry. They beat the clothes against rocks with sharp snaps. Sudsy water washed downstream towards filter grates.

  A wind picked up, pulling at my sari. I remembered I was dressed as a woman. Dressed normally. Both Lowry and Donavan would not know quite what to make of this, when I showed up dressed like this.

  You could hide almost anything under this flowing piece of cloth, I thought. And I put my hand down to the cold piece of metal by my hip – not a gun, but a recorder. There were many different ways I could see to play their own games on them. And would they expect it? No. Even though I pulled a rickshaw, they still thought of me as a poor woman.

  I smiled. The dirty white piece of cloth that had bound my breasts was still tucked into my sari as well. I pulled it out, the wind played with the edges, and I threw it out across the middle of the Parvati.

  It fluttered down onto the river’s surface. It floated for a moment, soaked up the muddy silt, blending in, and then sunk away beneath the surface.

  It was time to go show these men who I was.

  Io, Robot

  Even people who never read the original stories have usually been exposed to Asimov’s three laws of robotics, the first being, of course, that “a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” The book I, Robot, collected most of Asimov’s seminal robot stories, and even saw a big budget Will Smith movie.

  We stand on the shoulders of the giants who created this field, and with this story I wanted pay homage to their contributions and play off the famous title of Asimov’s. At the same time, I wanted to twist Asimov’s understanding of the universe around a little by reconsidering what it really means to be a human being.

  Sam carefully ran its six wheels through a series of crags near near the edge of a vicious lake of lava in a slow motion hunt. It paused near a final ridge to observe another machine like itself stuck underneath a boulder. As Sam braked to a stop pebbles and scrag clattered down the slope towards the molten rock, each piece hitting the lake’s burning edge with a glowing splash.

  The trapped machine’s tires spun, kicking up a plume of dust that sparked and swirled, a last desperate burst of energy. The tiny dish mounted
over its thorax-like body swiveled to point forward.

  It bleated out distress as behind it Jupiter rose over the horizon, its angry red spot and perpetual storms dominating the haze of electrically charged dust that danced in the atmosphere. The giant planet overpowered the entire sky.

  Sam didn’t notice. It waited for the other machine to quit struggling as it ran out of backup power, then moved in.

  The tires were the most valuable, and prone to failing. This machine’s tires had seen better days. A lake inspector, many of them had burned as the machine flirted with the lava to gain temperature readings and spectrum analysis from near point blank. Blackened scars and gouges from small eruptions pitted the machine’s carcass.

  With one set of optics keeping an eye on the lava, claws and drills, diamond tipped saws, all actually meant for geological work here in the dangerous environment of Io, Sam methodically dismantled the other robot.

  • • •

  Later, spare parts hidden away in a mountain cave, Sam perched on an outcropping high over a vast plain of smoothed over rock. Sam faced the newest volcano in its quadrant with an electronic quiver of anticipation.

  New data rolled through its circuits and nets, and Sam shivered in the closest thing to satisfaction it experienced on its daily information gathering trips through the crags and valleys of the violent moon.

  Molten ejecta hung high overhead, a plume of debris reaching miles overhead, almost into Io’s orbit.

  Sam recorded it all. The silent mandate lay over all Sam’s actions. Almost twenty years of recordings lay buried in Sam’s cobbled together memories, compressed and recompressed and crammed into every spare byte Sam could set aside.

  He brimmed with measurements and spectra, distances and chemical compositions.

  One day, Sam knew, human beings would come to Io and pick him up. They’d retrieve the data, and praise him. They would upgrade him and provide him with a shiny fresh carcass, and as much processing power as Sam could imagine.