Earth

by Ben Bova

  “From who?”

  “Whom,” Para corrected.

  Tray felt his brows knitting. “Who’s calling?”

  “Dr. Atkins’s assistant.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “It,” said Para.

  “Take a message,” Tray snapped. Then he added, “Please.”

  The robot’s form took shape in the middle of the sitting room. Unlike Para, the robot looked obviously mechanical, its face covered with aluminum alloy, its mouth nothing more than a speaking grill. Its body was humanform, but smaller than an average human being, unclothed, sheathed in brightly polished alloy.

  In a voice that was obviously mechanical, the robot said, “Dr. Atkins has scheduled your first exploratory interview for next Monday at oh nine hundred hours, in the conference room next to his office. Please confirm at your earliest convenience.”

  Tray swung his focus from the robot to Para. And blinked. Para looked almost completely human. Even though the range of emotions it could display was limited, compared to the robot Para was more like a companion, almost a brother.

  “I won’t be able to make that appointment,” Tray heard himself say.

  Without a moment’s hesitation the robot responded, “Please tell Dr. Atkins what date and time would be convenient for you.”

  “I’ll call him.”

  “When?”

  Tray equivocated, “Tomorrow, sometime tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” said the robot. Its projection winked off.

  Para said, “You have no intention of calling him, do you?”

  “That’s right,” Tray admitted.

  “You realize, of course, that Dr. Atkins could use the power of the law to compel you to submit to the memory erasure procedure.”

  Grimly, Tray nodded. But he said, “They’ll have to catch me first.”

  LE CHALET

  “You mean there’s no way I can refuse Atkins’s decision to tinker with my mind?”

  It was bright morning outside the apartment’s windows. Brilliant sunshine drenched the buildings, the walkways, the roads that carried an unending swarm of vehicular traffic.

  Para was standing beside one of the windows, yet the android was focused not on the scenery outside the apartment, but on Tray, sitting tensely on the plush sofa. Like Tray, Para was wearing light brown slacks and a cheerful bright short-sleeved shirt.

  But its response to Tray’s question was far from cheerful.

  “I have spent the night going through the legalities of your situation,” said the android. “Apparently Dr. Atkins has the authority to force you to submit to the procedure.”

  “That can’t be true,” Tray objected.

  “I believe it is. You can check the legal records for yourself, of course, if you wish.”

  Tray shook his head. “I wouldn’t find anything that you couldn’t.”

  “Then the legal situation is clear. You must obey Dr. Atkins’s directives.”

  “I don’t want my brain sliced up!”

  Para shook its head minimally. “There is no slicing involved. The procedure uses positronic beams to erase specific memories.”

  “I don’t want it,” Tray repeated.

  “The decision is not in your hands. Dr. Atkins and his team have the authority—”

  “I don’t want it!” Tray shouted.

  Para went silent, but kept its green optronic eyes focused on Tray. Tray pushed himself up from the sofa and paced across the sitting room, once, twice …

  “You could appeal to the director of the medical staff,” Para suggested.

  Tray stopped his pacing and turned to face the android. “Fat lot of good that would do,” he grumbled.

  “I agree,” said Para. “The decision has been made. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to avoid the erasure.”

  “Not legally.”

  Neither Para’s facial expression nor the tone of its voice could express surprise, but Tray felt the shock in the android’s response.

  “You are thinking of an illegal act?”

  “Extralegal,” Tray replied tightly. “I’m not going to steal anything. I just want to stop them from stealing my memories.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” Tray admitted. “But I’m not going to stay here and let them tinker with my memories.”

  “Your memories of Felicia.”

  Tray nodded. “I don’t want to lose her.”

  For several moments Para was silent. Tray and the android stood facing each other in absolute stillness. Tray’s mind was racing: memories of Felicia, of the Saviour’s destruction, of Atkins and his determination to slice Tray’s memories out of his brain. He thinks he’s doing the right thing, Tray realized. He thinks he’ll be helping me.

  Para broke the silence. “I can find only one recourse open to you.”

  “What is it?”

  “Appeal to Councilman Kell. He is still a member of the Interplanetary Council. Perhaps he can help you.”

  Tray nodded. “Kell. Yes. If he can’t help me, nobody can.”

  * * *

  They met for dinner that evening. Para thought it would be better if Tray met Kell alone, without his android chaperone, so it stayed in Tray’s apartment. But it remained linked electronically to Tray’s communicator, recording everything he and Kell said.

  At Kell’s suggestion they met at a continental restaurant named Le Chalet. It was far from downtown Denver, in a quiet ex-urban neighborhood on the shore of a man-made lake: small, quiet, decorated to resemble an old Swiss ski lodge.

  But Tray barely noticed the bare wooden beams holding up the ceiling, nor the electronic “windows” that displayed scenes of the Alps as they had been before global warming melted all their snow away.

  Kell was already seated at a table for two, off in a quiet corner of the restaurant. He got to his feet as the restaurant’s human proprietor showed Tray to the table.

  “Good of you to come out all this way,” Kell said graciously as they sat down. “I live in this neighborhood and this way I don’t have to travel downtown.”

  Tray glanced around the restaurant. “It looks like a nice place.”

  “Good food, no frills, no entertainment—except on Friday nights, when the proprietor’s son plays the accordion.” Lowering his voice a notch, Kell added, “I wouldn’t recommend this place on Friday nights.”

  Tray laughed politely. They made their selections from the electronic menus built into the tabletop. Tray picked almost at random. The menu choices made no difference to him; he didn’t feel hungry at all.

  Then Kell asked, “So what’s your trouble with the medics?”

  Feeling relieved to get at the problem, Tray swiftly outlined the situation. Kell nodded silently until he finished.

  Guardedly, Kell said, “Memory editing is a well-accepted therapeutic procedure. And Dr. Atkins is one of the top men in the field.”

  “I don’t want my memory edited,” said Tray.

  The robotic waiter arrived with their salads. Once it left, Kell asked, “There’s something you want to remember?”

  “Someone I want to remember.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don’t want to lose my memories of her.”

  Kell hesitated, then said, “And you’re willing to fight the medical establishment to keep your memories of her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Despite the fact that they’re convinced the erasure would remove the block that’s hindering your recovery?”

  “They’re convinced,” Tray said. “I’m not.”

  Kell looked at Tray for a long, silent moment. Then, “I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to reverse their decision. If Atkins and his people want to, they can have the police bring you in for the procedure.”

  Tray felt his entire body tensing.

  “It’s within their prerogative,” Kell said.

  “Damn!”

  “But it doesn’t have to come to that. I’ll do
all that I can to help you.”

  Tray nodded tightly. “Thank you, Mr. Kell.”

  “Jordan.”

  With the beginnings of a smile, Tray replied, “Thank you … Jordan.”

  MEMORIES

  That night Tray’s dreams were haunted with memories of the Saviour mission. And of Felicia.

  He dreamt that the two of them were walking slowly along one of the long passageways that ran the length of the starship. People passed them by: couples, crew members hurrying on their missions, officers chatting amiably among themselves. But they were all shadow figures, hardly real. Felicia walked beside him, her hand solidly in his.

  Tray couldn’t quite make out what they were talking about: wedding plans, preliminary scans of the intelligent creatures they were going to save from the Death Wave, something, nothing. The only thing that mattered was that they were together and they loved each other.

  Felicia’s face was something of a blur to Tray. He tried to concentrate on her eyes, her lips, her smile. But it was all maddeningly out of focus, as if he were looking through a misty, fogged window.

  Suddenly Captain Uhlenbeck stood between them: stern, frowning, his face splotchy red with anger.

  “I told you not to touch those noisemakers of yours,” the captain said, his voice heavy with menace. He was a short, squat, ugly man with thick lips and a short temper.

  Tray argued, “In the privacy of my own quarters—”

  “Privacy?” Uhlenbeck snapped. “Privacy? There is no privacy aboard this ship. You will obey my orders! No exceptions!”

  And Tray found himself in the lonely scoutship, on the other side of the Raman star system. He watched, helpless, as the Saviour was ripped apart by the meteor swarm. All aboard were killed. Felicia. Dead. Snuffed out in an instant. Killed.

  Killed by a meteor swarm that I could have mapped out, warned them, saved them from—if I hadn’t been exiled to the other side of the star system. Anger welled up within him. Rage. I didn’t kill Felicia, he told himself. Fat-headed Uhlenbeck did!

  Tray’s eyes snapped open. He was lying in his bed, in his apartment in the medical center on Earth. Felicia’s mutilated body was spinning through space hundreds of light-years away. Dead. Killed.

  Because of me, Tray realized all over again. Not Captain Uhlenbeck. Because I didn’t recognize the danger that the meteor swarms posed. Because I didn’t detect the swarm that killed her. My fault. All my fault.

  He lay there safe in his bed and told himself that he couldn’t detect the meteor swarm, couldn’t warn Felicia and the others. He was twelve billion kilometers from the ship, alone, exiled.

  Still, he cried. He lay there in the safe warm bed and sobbed until he ran out of tears.

  * * *

  He lay there twisted in the sheets until morning sunlight brightened his bedroom. He got up slowly and showered, dressed. Precisely at nine a.m. Para knocked gently at his front door as the android did every morning. Tray went through the motions of going down to the building’s nearest cafeteria for breakfast with the android. Para ate nothing, of course. Tray left most of his breakfast untouched.

  “You have no appetite this morning,” the android observed.

  “I dreamt about Felicia.”

  “Again.”

  “Again.”

  Para hesitated, then spoke up. “Are you sure that avoiding the memory erasure procedure is your best course of action?”

  “Yes!” Tray snapped. “I don’t want to lose Felicia.”

  Another hesitation. Then, “She is dead, Trayvon.”

  “Not to me.” Tray tapped his temple. “I’ve got her in here and I’m not going to let them take her away from me.”

  Para blinked slowly, as if digesting the information. At last it said, “Then you will need a place to hide.”

  “Hide?”

  “Dr. Atkins can ask the police to take you by force and bring you to the clinic where the procedure is to be performed. You will need a place to hide from the police, sooner or later.”

  Tray fell silent, absorbing the idea.

  Para began, “Perhaps Councilman Kell—”

  “No,” Tray interrupted. “I don’t want to get Jordan in trouble with the Powers That Be.”

  “Who, then?”

  Without an instant’s hesitation, Tray replied, “Loris. She can help me.”

  “Loris De Mayne?” For the first time since he’d known the android, Tray felt that Para was surprised. No … it was shocked.

  “Loris De Mayne,” Tray repeated. “She can help me. If she wants to.”

  CONSPIRACY

  “Hide you?” Loris’s beautiful eyes went wide with surprise.

  She and Tray were walking along a bustling sidewalk on the edge of the medical center. Loris had driven there to meet him.

  Tray studied her lovely, sculpted face. Her eyes were bright blue, sparkling in the sunshine. He thought of Para’s deep green eyes. The android’s eyes were the green of optronic technology, while Loris’s eyes were warm, living, enticing.

  She focused on Tray as she asked, “Why do you need to hide?”

  Tray realized once again that she was almost his own height: tall, athletically slim, beautiful. Her face showed a mixture of curiosity and concern.

  He began to answer. “The medical staff has decided that they want to erase my brain of certain … certain memories from the Saviour mission.”

  They walked through the crowd for several steps before Loris asked, “Certain memories?”

  Tray suddenly wished he hadn’t asked for Loris’s help. He looked at the crowd around them, walking, chatting, laughing as though they hadn’t a care in the world.

  At last he replied to her, “The doctors think that some of my memories are blocking my full recovery. They think that if they erase those memories I can be cured.”

  “Cured of what?” Loris asked. “You seem perfectly normal to me.”

  Tray spotted an empty bench in the mini-park they were passing. He grasped Loris’s hand and led her across the grass to it. They sat, side by side, while the rest of the world paraded along the walkway, ignoring them.

  He sat there in the afternoon sunshine and explained, “We were going to get married. But she was killed along with everybody else—except me.”

  Loris stared at Tray for a long silent moment. Then, “You were going to get married?”

  With a solemn nod, Tray replied, “Her name was Felicia Cantore. I loved her and she’s dead, killed by the meteor swarm that I failed to detect.”

  “And you feel guilty.”

  “I don’t want them to cut my memories of her out of my head,” Tray said, in a low urgent whisper. “Those memories are all I have left of her.”

  “But the medical staff…”

  “They’ve decided that those memories are blocking my recovery. My feelings of guilt.” With the heat of resentment rising inside him, Tray went on, “They want to scrub my brain and make me a happy citizen. A brain-dead happy citizen.”

  “You must have loved her very much,” Loris said, in a near whisper.

  “I still do.”

  She nodded. Tray found that he couldn’t face her stare. He turned and looked out at the crowded walkway, at the people passing by endlessly.

  At last Loris broke their silence. “So you need to hide from the police—assuming that the doctors send the police to bring you in for their treatment.”

  “Yes,” said Tray, grasping at the hope. “Just for a week or so, until Jove’s Messenger leaves for Jupiter.”

  “You plan to go on the expedition.”

  “To see the Leviathans. Of course.”

  Loris fell silent again. But Tray could see from her facial expression that now she was thinking, considering, planning.

  At last she said, “The best place to hide is where they’d never look for you.”

  “I suppose that’s right.”

  “And where would they never look for you?” she asked, smiling satisfiedly.


  Tray shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “I do.”

  “Where?”

  “Aboard the ship that’s going to Jupiter!”

  “Jove’s Messenger?”

  “Of course,” Loris said, smiling brilliantly. “They’d never think of looking for you there. It’s the perfect hiding place.”

  Feeling his brows knitting, Tray asked, “But how can I get aboard the ship before the other passengers?”

  “You leave that to me,” said Loris. “I’ll get Uncle Harold to take you on as the ship’s astronomer. He’ll do that for me.”

  “Uncle Harold? You mean Harold Balsam, the Council president?”

  Loris bobbed her head in happy acknowledgment.

  “He’s your uncle?”

  “Almost. An old friend of the family. He’s been after me for months.”

  “After you?”

  Her smile dimming only slightly, Loris said, “He finds me attractive.”

  “Attractive? You mean … sexually?”

  “What else?”

  Tray sank back on the park bench, his mind spinning.

  Loris was saying, “I’m sure he’d sneak you on board the ship if I went to bed with him.”

  “No!” Tray snapped.

  Loris blinked at him. “No?”

  “I can’t have you prostitute yourself for me.”

  “Prostitute…?” Loris’s expression went from delight to shocked surprise. She stared at Tray for a long, silent moment.

  Feeling miserable, Tray tried to explain, “I know you want to help me, and I thank you for it, but I can’t let you—”

  Loris’s smile returned, but this time it was sympathetic. “I forgot that you were born nearly a thousand years ago.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it.”

  “Of course it does,” she said, not unkindly. “Your attitudes about sex are terribly out of date, Tray.”

  “Out of date?”

  “Tray, we were taught in school that sex is for pleasure, not for procreation. We have chromosomal selection centers and remote insemination labs. Artificial wombs where babies are brought to term. Women don’t get pregnant now. Who wants to bloat out like a balloon and take all those risks?”