That's when I figured out what had really happened.
* * * *
The rain fell in torrents, slicing into the thick Nelsani jungle. I stepped into the hut and lowered my hood. Despite the weather, the little shop was bustling, the aisles full of customers browsing the gear. I found Asif at the counter, handing a box of shoes to a hairy Srendian and her hairy child. I waited until they shuffled away.
“Busy day,” I said.
He turned in my direction, smiling the plastic salesman's smile, but when he recognized me it faded.
“You,” he said. “I'm surprised to see you here again.”
“Really?” I said. “I guess you don't think very highly of me then.”
“I'm sorry?”
“I mean, if you thought more highly of me, then you might fear I'd figure out your little secret . . . Vergon.”
To his credit, he didn't even blink. But then, that only confirmed my suspicion. We stared at each other in the crowded room, the murmur of customers all around us. The rain crackled on the roof. I'd deliberately spoken softly enough that the customers perusing the gravboards over in the corner wouldn't hear me.
I stepped forward so we were even closer, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Don't insult me by denying it,” I said.
He said nothing for a long time, then nodded. “How did you know?”
“A couple things,” I said. “Your name, first of all. Asif Phoenix? As in, the phoenix that rises from its own ashes? It was a little too cute.”
“Right.”
“And then there was how you didn't even break a sweat scaling the mountain.”
“Of course. I should have been more careful and installed sweat glands.”
“It was pretty clever,” I said. “I never would have put it together except how things went down with Granger Holdings and Vergon Enterprises. When I realized it was exactly the way you would have wanted things to go down, I understood why Granger Holdings bought out Mind-Body Technologies, and I also knew what the problem Bwer-Fwer mentioned was. It wasn't a problem at all. It was just that you couldn't quite cover all your tracks. You created a second android, didn't you? You created two Vergons.”
“No,” he said. “There was only one Vergon Daughn and he died. It had to be that way for my plan to work. I am Asif Phoenix. That is my identity.”
“But you have Vergon's memories?”
“Yes. For all intents and purposes, I am Vergon. I only changed my identity in the physical sense. Inside, I am still the same person.”
“A person who happens to covertly control an ownership stake in Granger Holdings?”
“Yes.”
I nodded, amazed at the brilliance and audacity of his plan. Once he'd realized that Ginger would kill him to get what she wanted, he knew that the only way to stop her was to actually die and then have another company take over and force her out. She would have gotten at least half of his net worth in a divorce, which would have probably destroyed Vergon Enterprises in the process.
“Why not bump her off yourself?” I asked. “That would have been a lot easier.”
“Easier, yes,” he said. “But I'm not that kind of android, and despite what Ginger is, I am still concerned for her welfare. It's why I left her with some money. I could have easily left her broke and heavily in debt. I didn't want to hurt her. I just wanted to prevent her from hurting others.”
“Sounds like love to me.”
“Call it what you will.”
He reached behind the counter and brought up a handheld, punching a few buttons on the tiny black keyboard. “So how much do you want?”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I assume you want me to pay you for your silence.”
“Oh no, I didn't come for that. I just came to satisfy my curiosity. And to say well done. Your secret is safe with me.”
He nodded. “Thank you. I will always be in your debt.”
“Only one thing I don't understand.”
“Yes?”
“Why didn't you stay human? You could have transferred your essence into another human rather than an android. Did you decide that you liked being an android better than being a human?”
“No, that wasn't it. In fact, despite what I said to the media, I quite liked being a human. And I see nothing wrong with an android who decides to become one. Or vice versa.”
“Then why?”
He looked thoughtful, and I wondered how much of it was in the look and how much was in the thought. After all, that android brain of his was a million times faster than mine, and any answer he'd thought of would have taken a nanosecond. The rest was just for show. Or was it? Maybe there were some things you could wrestle with for one second or for a million and it wouldn't make a difference.
“I'm not sure I could adequately explain my decision,” he said.
“Try me.”
“Well, perhaps it would be best if I just summed it up with a simple colloquial expression . . . Ignorance is bliss.”
One of the customers looking at the gravboards wandered over, asking for help, so he didn't get a chance to explain. That was okay. He didn't need to. Androids, after all, couldn't feel anything. They couldn't feel the enormous pain of being hurt by someone they loved. In that sense, I envied him. He could say that he'd loved Ginger once but the memory of it no longer stung.
And if I wasn't so squeamish about trying to separate the essence of me from my human body, I might have asked him if he could make me an android too.
Copyright © 2010 Scott William Carter
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Novella: PROJECT HADES
by Stephen Baxter
Are you sure this didn't almost happen?
1
Sunday 30th October, 1960. 2210.
Clare Baines parked her motorcycle outside the Reiver's Arms and climbed off. She took off her helmet, replacing it with her police cap. The October night was pitch black, and a wind moaned off the moor.
When she opened the pub door she was dazzled by the bright light. Sweaty, smoky air spilled out, and a jangle of overamplified guitar music: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. She braced herself and walked in.
A punter, brimming pint in hand, lurched towards her, one arm outstretched. “Watch your family jewels, lads, it's the lady copper!”
Clare said, “Bonny lad, that wandering hand is going to get shoved so far up your jacksie you'll be picking your teeth from the inside.”
The drunk backed off. “All right, lass, no offence.”
Winston Stubbins approached her, tall, gangly, earnest, wearing a duffel coat and boots. “Clare. I don't suppose you fancy a Newkie Brown.”
“I'm on—”
“Duty. Yes, we can all see that.”
“I hope you're not going to give me any trouble, Winston. You and this lot of boozed-up non-conformists. I'm just here to keep the peace.”
“Peace? That's a bit ironic, isn't it? Considering that tonight the largest atomic weapon ever tested in western Europe is going to blow up not a mile from this bloody pub.”
“According to our briefings it's all perfectly safe.”
“Safe? Clare, the geology around here—”
“'—shows signs of instability.'”
“So you did read my letters.”
“My sergeant made me. Look, Winston, what makes you think you know better than all the boffins?”
“I'm here. They're not. Clare, it's an American base out there. Americans don't tell us anything.”
A tall, slim man in an American army uniform worked through the crowd towards them. “Did somebody page me? Good evening, Clare.”
“WPC Baines to you, Buck.”
Winston goggled. “Buck? Sergeant Grady, you're actually called Buck?”
“And you're actually called Winston. You limeys slay me. Clare told me about you. The old boyfriend with a bug up his ass.”
Clare said, “He was never my boyfriend. I've been trying to tel
l him the test is perfectly safe.”
“So it is, Winston. Aldmoor may be an American base, but Hades is a British programme, as designed and managed. The chain of command is intertwined right to the top.”
“Cobblers.”
Clare said, “Sorry, Buck. He has issues about Americans. His mother was a GI bride—”
“That's got nothing to do with it,” Winston said hotly.
Buck said, “Look, Winston, I have a sort of public liaison role. That's why I'm here in the pub—not for the beer, believe me. Here, take my card. Give me a call in the morning.”
“What good's that? By the morning the bomb will have gone off, won't it?”
Buck said, “Single-minded sort, isn't he?”
Clare said, “No. Strong-willed. There's a difference.”
Buck said, “Quite a crowd you've gathered here anyhow, Winston. Who are they—CND?”
“Some. They're mostly locals. All with valid concerns about the test.”
“Well, there's a couple more waiting out the door. See, Clare, the old guy in the dodgy coat and the posh young lady? They don't look local to me. Reporters, you think?”
Clare said, “Oh, great, that's all I need.”
Chapman Jones closed the doors of the Ministry car. Somewhere an owl hooted. The car pulled away, disappearing into the night. Jones shivered and closed his trenchcoat tighter. “So this is Aldmoor. And Halloween! Always an eerie time.”
Thelma Bennet peered through the pub window. “They all seem to be wearing black in there. Do you think it's a funeral, Jones?”
“No, no. It's just the fashion. No offence, Thelma, but this is your age group—a whole generation doomed to wear black polo-neck jumpers. Makes me rather glad I've passed fifty.”
“So they're followers of fashion even here in Northumberland. I hope we're not wasting our time.”
“Well, the anomaly report cluster was credible enough to have dragged us all the way up here from London—”
A military jet roared overhead, flying remarkably low, startling them; Jones glanced up to see its lights receding.
“Something to do with that, perhaps,” he said. “This is a militarised countryside—a cockpit of the Cold War, Thelma. No wonder people are a bit paranoid—”
And another noise fled through the air overhead, like a shriek, and again they flinched. Looking up, Jones saw an odd light sliding across the sky, misty, a roughly spherical cloud.
Thelma said, “Look, do you see that? A sort of glow.”
“Yes. It seems to be tracking the aircraft.”
“Something to do with the aircraft's wake?”
“Hmm. I doubt it,” Jones said. “But what was it? Ball lightning—or some other plasma effect? It had a fairly definite shape, didn't it?”
“Yes. And denser towards the centre. Layered, like an onion—”
“Or like an eye in the sky. How odd. Well, it's just as the reports described. At least we know we've got something to get our teeth into. Come on, let's go inside.”
A young policewoman met them at the door. Not tall, with her black hair neatly tied back, brisk, evidently competent, she smiled at them. “Good evening. Can I help you?”
“Well, that's the first time the police have helped me into a pub as opposed to out of one.”
Thelma said, “Don't be childish, Jones. Good evening. My name's Thelma Bennet, and this is Doctor Chapman Jones. And you are—”
“WPC Baines, 534. Are you here for the protest?”
Jones said, “No, no. We're here from the Ministry of Defence. Following up anomalous sightings.”
Baines grinned. “Sightings of what? Flying saucers?”
Jones sighed.
Thelma asked quickly, “What protest?
A gangly young man approached, trailed by a US army soldier. “Against the bomb test,” said the youngster. His accent, like the WPC's, was thick and local—Geordie. He struck Jones as earnest, agitated.
“They call it Hades,” said the American. “An international programme of thermonuclear detonations planted deep underground.”
The boy said, “And the one they're about to blow up here is in an abandoned mine shaft at a place called Lucifer's Tomb. Appropriate name, isn't it?”
“We haven't been introduced,” said Thelma.
The tall soldier bowed. “Sergeant Buck Grady, US Army. And this is Winston, ah—”
“Winston Stubbins.”
Thelma introduced herself and Jones.
Buck smiled. “So, Doctor Jones, you came all the way to northern England, in October, because—?”
“Fishing to see if we're here to cause you trouble, are you, Sergeant?”
Winston said, “What trouble? All these people have turned out because they don't want a megabomb going off underneath their homes. The farmers’ ewes are already pregnant with next year's lambs. And the miners are worried about safety down the pit.”
Buck's grin widened. “Oh, Winston here thinks if we set off the bomb the planet will go pop like a party balloon. Right, Winston?”
Winston scowled. “The geology's unstable. They don't know what they're doing.”
Jones said, “And you do? Are you a geologist, Winston?”
“He's a coal miner,” Clare said. “And a geologist. Self-taught. Buck, you leave him alone.”
Jones said, “There's nothing wrong with self-taught. I'm self-taught in most subjects myself. Tell me, Winston—how far to this Tomb of Lucifer?”
“A short walk, west of here.”
“And until the test?”
“The detonation's scheduled for midnight,” Buck said.
Jones checked his watch. “Good, we've got time. Winston, why don't you show me this instability of yours?”
“Are you serious? You'll listen to what I have to say?”
“Never more serious in my life. We are specifically here to investigate the out-of-the-ordinary.”
Thelma said, “I think I'd rather stay in the warm, if you don't mind, Jones.”
Buck said, “In that case I would be delighted to buy you a drink.”
“I was hoping somebody would say that.”
* * * *
Buried deep beneath the huts, training fields and runways of Aldmoor base, the Project Hades command centre was, tonight, a noisy place. Overlaid on the hum of fans and pumps and the echoes from the steel walls were the bleeps of oscilloscopes, the clatter of teletypes and static-laden radio voices. Aged fifty-seven, in his worn tweeds, John Tremayne knew he looked quite out of place in this pit of humming military tension, the rows of consoles manned by very young, very intelligent soldiers. And yet all this activity was a fulfilment of his dream, his design.
Air Commodore Alfred Godwin had to lean close to the monitor to hear what was being relayed by the hidden cameras in the pub. Godwin was tall, stiff, his handsome face severe, his black hair slicked back; he was a little younger than Tremayne. He said, “The picture's clear enough, at least. Look at that clown in the trenchcoat, coming out of the pub.”
Tremayne said, “They're only protesters, Commodore Godwin. People have a right to be concerned, you know. And is it legal for you to be spying on a British pub?”
“This may be an American base, but I'm the senior RAF officer here, and under the NATO command structures I'm in overall control. To ensure the safety of this base I can do what I like, Tremayne.”
Joseph Crowne walked in, a clipboard under his arm. “The protesters won't get far, Commodore Godwin.” A US army major aged around thirty, Crowne was Godwin's key liaison to the American command.
Godwin said, “But your troops aren't patrolling beyond the fence, are they, Major?”
“No, sir. But we have a regular British army unit manning an outer perimeter. And there's a civil police presence too.”
“I've seen the ‘civil police presence.’ A slip of a girl! Well, I've spoken to the British detachment's captain, Phillips he's called, young chap but sound. He'll handle it.”
T
remayne said, “'Handle it?’ Godwin, I didn't get into this business for anybody to get harmed. If those protesters can't be removed without resorting to force—”
“Then what? Postponement tonight would set us back months. This is your baby, Tremayne. Project Hades will end the Cold War and deliver vast new capabilities into human hands. So you said! I'm just trying to get the job done.”
Crowne said, “I'm sure nobody will come to any harm, gentlemen.”
Godwin pointed at the monitor. “Maybe not. But Trenchcoat is heading straight for Lucifer's Tomb—and the bomb.”
* * * *
The moorland ground was rough underfoot, and Jones was glad of Winston's torch. They were walking west, towards a glow of sodium lights that must mark the position of the Aldmoor base, but there was a cluster of floods in the foreground that Jones assumed was Lucifer's Tomb.
Jones essayed, “PC Baines seems fond of you. She stuck up for you, back there.”
“Clare? We grew up together. She's a bonny lass. But we're on opposite sides now, aren't we?”
“I wouldn't say that. You're both trying to stop any harm being done, as far as I can see. You're just coming at it from different directions. Tell me about this ‘Lucifer's Tomb.'”
“See the floodlights? The American implanted their bomb right inside the Tomb, in an old mineshaft. The Tomb itself is a deep-cut valley full of broken rocks. The local legend is that it's where Lucifer fell from heaven.”
“Hmmph. Sounds more like an Ice Age relic to me.”
“Exactly. And the basement geology is a junction between Scottish basalts and Northumbrian sandstones.”
“You know your stuff. A place of great geological violence, then, where Scotland once crashed into England. But what makes you think it's unstable?”
“Seismology. I've been taking traces for years.”
Jones looked at him. “Years? But you're only—what, twenty?”
“Nineteen. Geology's been a sort of hobby since I was first took down the mine by my uncle, at fourteen.”
Analog SFF, July-August 2010 Page 30
