by E. M. Foner
“Not so fast,” Terri said with a smile. “We have our own special circumstances as well. For starters, we currently don’t accept any immigrants, so everybody in our towns grew up under the rule of Prince Drume. Although he doesn’t exert any direct control over this continent, he holds all of the mortgages and grants all of the technology licenses. Our people know that if we held an election and established an Earth-style government, it wouldn’t be able to do much differently than we’re doing already.”
“Aren’t you elected?” Lynx asked.
“Sure, we’re elected to run our factories,” the mayor of Distilling replied. “The town belongs to the factory, of course, so we’re stuck dealing with municipal issues as well. The factories hold an election once a year, that’s about every five hundred days if you’re still using the Earth calendar on Union Station, but the process is pretty informal. All of the tenured employees get together outside on a nice day, and the ones dumb enough to want to be mayor go and stand up front where everybody can see them. The people who want to vote for a particular candidate form a line behind that person. I’ve never heard of an election being so close that anybody had to count the people in the lines.”
“Sounds like the same system the Dollys use on their private worlds,” Woojin commented.
“Of course,” Bob said. “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and we sure as heck can’t beat ‘em. I guess we’ve adopted everything we can from the Dollnicks, except for their sports, though some of the kids even fool around with artificial arm sets just to try. And it’s no great privilege being mayor, if you were wondering. None of us have time for production work anymore, it’s all management and inter-factory relations. I spend so much time visiting Library and Infrastructure that the neighbors are beginning to think I’ve moved out.”
“You have a whole town dedicated to a library?” Lynx asked.
“They have a library, but the town handles education and recordkeeping as well,” Sheila replied. “We use the same Stryx-supplied teacher bots as Earth because the price is unbeatable, but we also send our kids to Library two days a week, for classrooms with human teachers. They mainly follow the Dollnick curriculum.”
“And Infrastructure handles your power, water, sewer and such?” Woojin asked.
“Infrastructure does the installation and maintenance, but the equipment is still leased from the Dollnicks,” Bob replied. “You know the Dollnicks have been terraforming worlds for millions of years so they’re experts at providing all of the utilities needed by biologicals. Our factories specialize in goods we can barter locally with the other towns or export for hard Nickies.”
“So you’re on the Dollnick currency base as well,” Woojin said.
“Of course,” Bob replied. “What else would we use?”
“Would you mind if we take a break to watch ‘The Vanished Princess’ on the holo?” Terri asked. “If I miss an episode, I won’t have a clue what anybody is talking about at home or at work tomorrow.”
“I’m sure our guests won’t mind,” Bob answered for them. He turned on the local version of a Dollnick holo projector, manufactured under license. “If you’ve never watched a Dolly serial, you’re in for a treat. Best entertainment in the galaxy.”
Seven
“Well, I have to admit that Libby was right not to tell us beforehand,” Kelly said, as they all crowded into a lift tube after finishing off their lunch. “Who would have thought that a week in a waste water treatment facility could be so relaxing?”
“I wouldn’t call it a facility,” Joe objected. “They weren’t even using pumps after all. The way the ground went right up near the ceiling behind the waterfall, they actually created enough elevation change on the deck for the water to flow through the filters. It’s more of a natural machine.”
“When I grow up, I want to be a toilet maker,” Samuel announced.
“Everybody in?” Kelly asked, counting heads. “Where’s Banger? Oh, there you are. Week Two of the McAllister vacation, please,” she instructed the lift tube. The capsule accelerated smoothly, and the trip went on for much longer than the standard commute from Mac’s Bones to the embassy or the Little Apple. Finally, the door slid open to reveal an eerie blue glow. Beowulf stuck out his head, sniffed, and then looked over his shoulder at Joe.
“Go ahead, boy,” Joe told the dog. “Whatever it is, Libby wouldn’t have sent us here if it ate oversized hounds with high self-esteem.”
With that reassurance, Beowulf decided to put aside the spooky feeling the deck gave him and at least make a good show of it. He emerged into the strange blue light and the weird whispers, and then froze as a hand reached out of nowhere to touch his nose. It went right through his head, like when he walked into the middle of one of the holo-casts humans were so fond of, but that didn’t make Beowulf any happier. He turned around to get back into the lift, but everybody had crowded out behind him and the door had already slid shut. The dog sat down on the deck and resolved not to budge.
“Are they all ghosts, Daddy?” Dorothy asked, sounding a little less sure of herself than usual. She and Mist each had a grip on the other’s upper arm, and they stood pressed together, side-by-side.
“I don’t know, Dot,” her father replied, setting down his pack in case he needed to be free for action. “What do you think, Kel?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Kelly declared. She studied the disembodied forms for a clue as to their origin. “It’s just some sort of holo display Libby has created for us, though why she chose such figures, I can’t imagine.”
They all halted for a moment, examining the densely packed array of translucent aliens, all floating at impractical angles between the deck and the ceiling. Kelly got the distinct feeling that the alien projections were somehow disappointed in the new arrivals for not being somebody else. The overall impression she got from the forms was that of smooth-bodied, long-tailed humanoids with oversized heads.
“Are the holo-things friendly?” Samuel asked Banger.
“They aren’t holographic projections, they’re energy matrices,” the little Stryx told his friend. “I can do the math, but I don’t know how to describe them to you.”
“Can’t you ask somebody?” Ailia suggested. She had only kept her eyes open long enough to find Samuel’s hand, which she clenched tightly. The boy wasn’t complaining and trying to shake free for a change.
“I just checked with Jeeves and he says they’re ghosts,” Banger replied.
Dorothy and Mist screamed, and Kelly was sure that the hair on the back of her neck was sticking up the same way as Beowulf’s. “You know what a practical joker Jeeves is,” she said uncertainly. “How can they be ghosts?”
“What’s to worry about with things that can’t even touch us?” Joe said. He jogged a few steps into the swarm of glowing beings, swinging his arms through dozens of apparitions as he went. “See? There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I don’t like it,” Kelly said, but she was already beginning to calm down. Ghosts or not, she had met plenty of strange aliens in the last thirty years, and whether they were technically alive or not didn’t make that much difference. “Shouldn’t there at least be a sign or something telling us where to go?”
“Follow the white arrows on the deck,” intoned a disembodied voice.
Dorothy and Mist screamed again, pointing at various grotesque shapes which they imagined they had seen speak, and obviously enjoying themselves greatly. Joe looked around, squinting against the strange blue light that seemed to emanate from the ghosts. “Does anybody see an arrow on the deck?” he asked. Samuel got down on his hands and knees and began examining the deck minutely, forcing Ailia to crawl along with him since she wouldn’t let go of his hand.
“Maybe the bot who was supposed to paint the arrow didn’t get to it,” Kelly suggested, recalling the lack of signage on the last deck.
“Did you see an arrow, boy?” Joe asked the giant dog. Beowulf shook his head in the negative,
but Kelly thought she saw the tip of a white triangle sticking out from under furry ribs.
“I think he’s lying on it, Joe,” she said.
Beowulf gave the humans his “Who? Me?” act, and ostentatiously examined the deck to either side of his body before looking back at Joe and shaking his head.
“Come on, get up,” Joe ordered. The dog rose grudgingly, giving Kelly a look that implied she was making preparations for her own funeral. A large white arrow was revealed, and it pointed right through the thickest section of spirits.
“They’re moving away,” Mist called excitedly.
“Like the Red Sea in the immersive,” Dorothy added.
Sure enough, a passage through the packed ghosts was opening up along the direction the arrow pointed, and a bright light could be seen beyond. Whatever the apparitions consisted of, apparently they blocked light, even as they themselves glowed.
“Follow me,” Joe said, shouldering the pack and heading into the open channel. “Beowulf, you can bring up the rear if you want.”
As it turned out, Beowulf wanted to be right in the middle of the pack, behind Joe and the big girls. Kelly prodded Samuel and Ailia into the passage after the dog, and was grateful when Banger ushered her in next, taking the final place in line himself.
“They’re all trying to talk at once,” Ailia said, her thin voice barely audible in the wash of alien whispers. “Do you think they want something from us?”
“I can’t imagine what we could give to ghosts,” Kelly replied, finally accepting that the flitting and insubstantial bodies were in some way alive. “Let’s just get through this passage and then we can have some emergency rations.”
In a few short minutes, the press of ghosts began to thin out and a park-like landscape became visible through the remaining translucent bodies. Initially the view reminded Kelly of the works of the French Impressionists, but after another hundred steps, the scene snapped into such sharp focus that she might have been looking at a photograph. The manicured flora and delicate sculptures were so well defined that it was hard to believe they were real and not a doctored image.
“Aside from the unsettled spirits it’s pretty nice,” Joe declared, surveying the gardens. “I’ve seen some fancy royal parks on the Vergallian and Dollnick worlds, but this place takes the prize.”
“Assuming the ghosts can’t do any gardening, does that mean it grows this way, or is the work all done by bots?” Kelly asked.
“A new ghost is here, Daddy,” Dorothy shrieked, pointing in excitement. “He looks almost human.”
Before their eyes, the new apparition slowly solidified, and with the exception of the bald, oversized head, it did appear to be a standard humanoid. Even more startling, it was dressed in a tuxedo and patent leather shoes. Only the exposed skin of the hands and the head retained the ethereal appearance.
“Forgive me if I startled you,” the ghost said. “I’ve taken the liberty of requesting the station manager to aid me in vocalizing the language native to four of your group and I hope the others will understand. May I ask if the big hairy one is your leader?”
Beowulf and Joe both puffed out their chests in acknowledgement.
“We don’t have a leader,” Kelly said. “We’re on vacation. I’m Kelly, this is my husband Joe, our children Dorothy and Samuel, and their friends Mist, Ailia and Banger. The other hairy one is Beowulf.”
“Ah, a formal introduction,” the ghost replied. “My own name in our native system of communication has no vocal component, but perhaps you could call me Marvin.”
“Are you friends with Libby?” Dorothy asked.
“Libby, Libby,” the ghost mused. “You mean the station manager’s young offspring who serves as the librarian? We spoke with her recently about opening our deck to visitors and I suppose you are the result. My comrades were no doubt expecting to greet a species we are familiar with, but you’ll do.”
“Do what?” Joe asked suspiciously.
“Why, enjoy our deck,” Marvin replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I have volunteered as tour guide, being the youngest of my kind, and I will be happy to answer any questions you might have.”
“Are you really ghosts?” Samuel asked. Ailia shivered beside him.
“Ghosts, now there’s a tricky concept. I can see how you might make the argument that it’s the best description which your, shall we say, incompletely developed language can supply. If it makes you uncomfortable, I assure you that we are not dead in any sense of the word, other than having discarded our bodies. In fact, if being immortal is the opposite of being dead, we are about as undead as you can get.”
“What did he say?” Samuel asked.
“They aren’t REAL ghosts,” Dorothy replied.
“Oh.” Samuel sounded disappointed, but he turned back to Marvin and asked, “So what do you do?”
“Do?” The newly demoted ghost seemed taken aback by the question. “Why, we live, of course. Isn’t it obvious?”
“Can you make anything happen?” Dorothy asked. “Like, do you keep these gardens so pretty and make new sculptures?”
“Ah, you like our sculptures,” Marvin replied. “They’re perfect, aren’t they? Once of the reasons we gave up corporeal existence was that we had done everything worth doing. The gardening is now in the hands of bots, of course. The station manager supplied new ones when the original equipment we brought to the station wore out around twenty million years ago.”
“So you just fly around and haunt an empty deck all day?” Joe asked. It wasn’t a very diplomatic way of putting the question and Kelly nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.
“Haunt?” Marvin sounded amused. “Wouldn’t we need to have somebody here in order to haunt them?” He paused for a moment, assuming the pose of Rodin’s famous statue. “I think therefore I am. Does that sound familiar? I borrowed it from one of your own primitive philosophers.”
“For tens of millions of years?” Kelly asked in astonishment. “You and the rest of your race, you float around in here and think?”
“We aren’t limited to just Union Station. My people have decks on several stations which are still maintained by the Stryx. It’s not impossible that we still persist elsewhere as well, since the automated systems we created were as perfect as biological hands could make them. But then again, they did wear out here, didn’t they? It’s much more sensible to leave it to the AI in the end.”
“I’m bored,” Samuel declared. “Can I go exploring now?”
“Take Ailia and Banger and stay within sight,” Joe said. “Dorothy, if you and Mist want to look around, bring Beowulf.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
“Thank you, Mr. McAllister.”
Kelly and Joe were left alone with the ghost, who seemed to have run out of things to say.
“I don’t understand how anybody could abandon their bodies,” Kelly remarked.
“It’s easy when you’re sufficiently advanced,” Marvin replied. “It’s merely a question organizing your thoughts to the point that they defy entropy. Then you stop feeding the body, which you’ll have come to see as a disgusting biological artifact, and all that remains behind is the mind.”
“So what were the automated systems you perfected that the Stryx stand in for on the stations?” Joe asked.
“Just some necessary plumbing,” Marvin replied, looking a little uncomfortable for the first time. “Without the aid of containment fields, thoughts in space tend to bleed over into each other, no matter how focused. The manifestations you saw earlier, and the projection of myself which is conversing with you now, are examples of containment fields.”
“And the containment fields on this deck are supplied by the Stryx,” Joe said.
“No. Yes. Well, in a manner of speaking,” Marvin replied. “This field is created by my mentality, but through the intermediation of the station manager. A rough comparison might be humans creating music with instruments.”
“The Stryx are
your instruments?” Kelly asked skeptically.
“Perhaps that wasn’t a good analogy,” Marvin admitted. “It’s more like the implants you carry in your heads. You ask for something, perhaps a fact from the station librarian, and you get the answer. The real creative work is in the asking. The rest is mere information retrieval and computation.”
“We’re going to walk around a bit,” Joe said, cutting the conversation short. “Maybe we can talk more later.”
“Certainly,” Marvin replied. As the McAllisters walked away, the ghost called after them, “Don’t forget to tell your Libby how cooperative I am.”
Left alone by the ghosts, the family spent until suppertime exploring the extensive sculpture gardens in all their dizzying glory. There were small ponds with floating plants that blossomed at the approach of the visitors and folded up their flowers when the people moved on, as if admiration was their form of pollination. There were dwarf trees laden with surrealistic alien fruits, but when Samuel stretched for something that resembled a purple banana crossed with a pineapple, the branch lifted it out of his reach. There were dazzling creatures with gossamer wings flitting about, something between a butterfly and a hummingbird, and though they occasionally hovered for a few seconds in front of the visitors trespassing on their domain, none of them displayed any aggressive intentions.
“The last arrow we saw was pointing this way, and I don’t see any other trees growing right up to the ceiling, so this must be the rendezvous point,” Joe declared, setting down his pack on a stone bench. “I wonder what leftovers Ian will be sending along for our dinner tonight.”
Kelly glanced at her decorative wristwatch and then checked the time against her implant to be sure. “We still have a few minutes to wait, and I’m not starting without the children.”
