A Different Flesh

by Harry Turtledove

  "There's another problem," Ken added. "He'll feel well only as long as we have HIVI for him." He looked down at his hands. "Maybe we should have thought a little longer about that, for his sake."

  We did the best we could," Melody said. "He's out now. they can't do any more experimenting on him. He's free, for as long as we can keep him that way."

  Matt had heard almost identical talk every day since he left the towers. It was about him, he knew, but it did not fil to connect to him.

  Then Isaac said something new: "I don't think we can keep him free. We can keep him away from the doctors, sure, but only he can make himself free."

  Dixon scowled; Melody rose abruptly from the table. I'II be taking off soon, I think." Even Matt, who did not use speech himself, could hear the anger in her voice.

  He ate another sausage. Free was one of the many words they used that gave him trouble. Ideas like bread or cat or green or jump or sideways were easy enough to deal with. He could even count, though sometimes he had trouble remembering which number went with how many things or whether he had attached a number to each of the things in the group he happened to be counting.

  But he could not eat free or see it or do it. The closest he could come to it in his own mind was do whatever I want. Right now he was ful and felt well. He wouldn't have minded coupling, but Ken and Melody had taken him away to from his females and he found human women ugly. Still, he was reasonably content. Did that make him free?

  He didn't know.

  "Come on, Matt," Melody said. "We have to get moving. We've imposed on these good people quite enough, thats obvious." She walked out of the kitchen.

  "Don't take it that way, Melody," Emily said. "Isaac just, "

  "Never mind," Ken said, before anyone else could talk. "You put us up for the night, and we're grateful. We all share wanting to make things better for sims, and that's enough, isn't it?"

  Nobody said anything. Matt wondered what the answer to the question was. In the towers, people had wanted answers to questions all the time, and were upset when they didn't get them. But Ken and Melody and Isaac and Emily were just leaving this one lying around.

  Matt shook his head at the vagaries of people.

  Melody came back wearing rubber gloves and Carrying razor and a syringe.

  "Give me your arm, Matt," she said Not need, he protested. Feel good.

  He had said the same thing back in the towers, and the same success with it: none. "Give me your arm,' Melody repeated. "You want to keep feeling good, don't you?"

  He nodded resignedly and held out his right arm. The hair on its underside had been shaved a few days before he left the tower, but it was growing in again. The razor scraped it away, leaving a long, narrow stretch of pinkish skin exposed. Now Melody could see exactly where to put the needle.

  Matt's lips skinned back from his teeth in a grimace of pain. The people in the towers were much better at using syringe. They hardly hurt him at all. Finally, the ordeal ras done. Melody left the syringe on the table. "Boil it or put it in a glass ful of bleach before you throw it away," she said to Emily and Isaac. "Make sure you get rid of that virus."

  Not sick, nothing wrong, Matt signed, adding a moment latter, But arm hurts.

  "We're glad you feel all right," Melody said, smiling in a way.that made her seem more appealing to Matt than she had before, "but the virus is still in your blood. We don't want to take any risk of its spreading."

  Matt sighed. The people in the tower had talked that way to, but it made no sense to him. Blood is blood, he signed.

  "Never mind," Ken said again. "Let's get going."

  Matt accompanied him and Melody out to the horseless out front of Emily's and Isaac's house. Isaac stayed behind.

  Emily waved from the porch. The morning sun glinted off a gold front tooth.

  Ken started the horseless. He and Melody shared the front seat; Matt had the back to himself. "Springfield?" Ken asked as he pulled out into traffic.

  "Springfield," Melody agreed. "I've got the town map here.

  We won't need that for a few hours," he said. "All I need worry about now is finding my way to via LXVI eastbound."

  Matt listened to the two people with half an ear at best. he watched houses, trees, open spaces go by. That wasn't very interesting, either.

  He'd done too much of it already, the last few days. After a while, one house, one tree, one open space looked like another. If anything could be more boring for him than traveling in a horseless, he had no idea ,.. what it was.

  His eyes tried to glaze, but even that was denied him; it was too early in the day for him to fall asleep. He played With his fingers for a bit. That soon palled. He started to stroke himself, then stopped. For some reason, he knew people did not like anyone doing that out in the open.

  He started to sing instead. His song had no words; tongue and lips could not shape them. But the hoots a grunts he let out in their place had rhythm of a sort, rhythm he made plainer by pounding on his thighs withe palm of his hands. His head bobbed happily. As far he was concerned it was a fine song.

  He was the only one who thought so. Before very long Ken burst out,

  "Wil you please stop that infernal racket Matt subsided; he was used to obeying people. But he was not pleased about it this time. He held up his hands so they could see them in the mirror. Like my song, he signed grumpily.

  "Is that what you call it?" Ken said. "I don't."

  Matt held up his hands again. Not free to sing? he asked Not freed Ken almost drove off the road. "Watch where you going," Melody exclaimed. "What's the matter with you! Ken told her what the matter was; she laughed and laughed She turned round in her seat so she could sign with Matt as well as speak to him. "sing all you like."

  He opened his mouth to begin again, then paused. Why laugh he asked.

  "Because, because, " Melody stopped, finally, "Because we do want to help sims be free, but it surprised us to have a sim, you, use the word to us."

  Matt made an uncertain noise deep in his throat. It didn't seem very funny to him. He gave up and started sing again. Ken made a noise remarkably similar to his, but he didn't say anything.

  They got to Springfield before noon; Ken drove around while, trying to find the next safe house. "Fancier part town than I expected," he observed. The house was biger than the ones where they had stayed before and the yard had a fence around it, but Matt, who was used to the immence size of the towers, remained ummpressed. If a day in a horseless was the way to freedom, he was beginning to doubt that he wanted any part of it.

  His boredom fell away as he walked through the front. A female sim of about his own age was on her hands knees in front of the house, weeding in a flower bed. wa!" he said enthusiastically.

  She female looked over her shoulder and smiled at him. , "Hoo!" she said back. Her backside twitched a little.

  Uh-oh," Ken and Melody said at the same time. Matt paid little attention to them. Something else was on his mind.

  A plump, middle-aged man came out on the front porch he house.

  "Hello, my friends," he said. "I'm glad to see you. I'm Saul. Rhoda is on the phone, but she'll be out in a moment, I'm sure."

  Glad to see you, Saul." Ken nodded toward the female . "And who is this?"

  "Lucy?" Saul frowned. Then he looked from her to Matt.

  Matt saw that Saul was not looking at his face. He looked down at himself.

  His enthusiasm was quite visible. "Oh," Saul said.

  "I see"

  Yes," Ken said. He did not sound happy.

  Wel ," Saul said, and let that hang for a while before ming as if with happy inspiration, "let's go inside and uncle After that we can see what comes up." He looked last again, and broke into a laugh that sounded any thing but cheerful.

  The prospect of food was almost enough to divert Matt I Lucy.

  He went with Ken and Melody to join Saul with only a brief sideways glance at the female sim.

  Lucy put down the trowel she had b
een using and started to follow everyone else in. Matt felt a smile spread over his Food, a female, maybe this was what Ken and Melody ment by freedom. He had had this much back in the tower, outside, at least, no one did hurtful things to him, save the injection each morning. He'd had that before too, with much else, none of it pleasant. Getting away from those prodings, pokings, and stickmgs made even long stretches of riding in a horseless seem not too bad.

  But then he heard Saul say, "Lucy, why don't you stay outside and finish what you're doing? Rhoda will bring something soon, I'm sure."

  Matt let out an indignant grunt and sent a look to Ken and Melody. He was surprised and dismayed when they agreed with Saul.

  "Come on, Matt," Ken said. "Lunch first. We'l worry about everything else later."

  Sulkily, Lucy went back to work. Before she did, thou she gave Matt a glance full of promise from beneath brow-ridges. He let himself be steered into the house, but all he noticed about lunch was that there was a lot of it ended up not being hungry anymore, but with no idea what he'd eaten.

  After a while, Lucy did come in, to use the toilet. Before she could get into the same room as Matt, Rhoda found something for her to do out in the back yard. Again Ken and Melody failed to interfere.

  Matt glowered at them. This did not strike him as anything like freedom.

  Finally he had waited as long as he could. He got up and started toward the back of the house. "The toilet is through that door," Ken said sharply.

  Matt snorted. Not want toilet, he signed. Want, H. forearm pumped graphically.

  "No!" All the people in the room spoke together.

  The flat refusal brought Matt up short, and also madehim angry.

  Yes, he signed, nodding so vigorously that his long, chinless jaw thumped against his chest. Want couple. Not couple since leave tower. Want to. You couple, Yes? He pointed at Saul and Rhoda.

  Rhoda was even rounder than her husband. She turned pink at the question, but answered, "Yes, of course we do. Saul nodded.

  Matt turned to Ken and Melody. You, you couple, yes?

  They both turned pink, and looked away from each othf for a moment.

  "Yes, we do," Ken admitted at last. He still did not look at Melody until she reached out and took him hand in hers Matt signed. I couple too. He headed for the back door again.

  "No!" everyone said again.

  Now he stared at them in disbelief. Not free to couple? he signed.

  Not free? That had worked just this morning; he was sure it would again.

  But it failed. "No, Matt," Melody told him. "I'm sorry, but youre not free to couple."

  Not free? Matt signed, wondering if he had heard carectly. Why not free?

  When his hands had finished signing, they curled themselves into fists. He saw Melody, and everyone else, look alarmed at that. sims were stronger than people.

  Their fear did not stop them from arguing with him, though. Ken said,

  "You can't couple with Lucy because you have the AIDS virus in you. If you couple with her, you'll give her the same sickness you have."

  Not sick, Matt protested. Feel fine. Feel fine long time now.

  you give medicine, hurt arm, so l feel fine, yes?

  "You feel fine, yes," Melody said, "but what makes you sick is stil in you, and can go out when you couple. And we’ve no medicine for Lucy.

  I'm sorry, Matt." She spread her hands in a gesture sims and people shared.

  Matt only shook his head in reply. What she said made no sense to him. If he felt well, how could he have anything inside him that made him sick? And when he mated, the onIy thing that came out of him was jism.

  Jism was just jism. How could it make a female sick?

  A Besides, In tower, he signed, couple with many females.

  they not sick now. Why this female here get sick, if they not now? He grinned, pleased at his own cleverness it was bigger mental effort than he usually made.

  The people seemed to understand that too. Ken rolled his eyes, something else that was not part of sign-talk but that ,matt understood, and said to no one in particular, "Just at we need, a sim who cites precedent on us."

  that Matt did not follow. He did not waste time on it in any case, for Melody was saying to him, "The female sims the tower had the AIDS virus in them like you. They already il the same way you are."

  They not ill. They feel fine, Matt signed. Feel good. His hips moved involuntarily as

  he remembered how good the females back at the tower had felt. He wanted that feeling again. But as Melody still would not let him go.

  "Matt," she persisted "those females in the tower were getting medicine too, just like you, weren't they." Yes, and they feel fine, Matt answered.

  "This is getting us nowhere," Saul broke in. "If youre thinking of letting him couple with Lucy, you two, Rhoda and I will have to ask you to leave."

  "We never would have come here if we'd known you had a female sim," Ken said. They glared at each other. Hoping he was forgotten, Matt started toward the back of the housed again.

  "Wait!" Melody said. Resentful y, he turned back. He was tired of her trying to tell him things that obviously weren't so. What she said, though, did not look to have anything to do with his lust for Lucy: "You remember that I'm Henry Quick's great-great-granddaughter, don't you, Matt?" He nodded. That was one reason, and a big one, why Hal gone along when she and Ken and Dee came bursting into his room in the tower. No one connected with Henry Quick a could mean harm to a sim. He was sure of that.

  "Then please believe me, in Henry Quick's name, when I tel you that you shouldn't couple with Lucy, or with other female sim out here," Melody said earnestly. "Please, Matt."

  He looked away from her. He did not think She Was lying. He wished he did. Not understand, he signed.

  She sighed. "I know, Matt. Will you do as I ask anyhow Yes, he signed, giving up with more than a twinged regret, this Lucy was quite a desirable female. Handjobs al right he asked.

  "Is that sarcasm

  Saul asked “Hush," Melody said. "Of course not." she turned back to Matt. "Yes, of course using your hand is all right.... You Wil go into another room first."

  Matt went, thinking grumpily that people from outside the towers, even if they were related to Henry Quick, explained about every little thing. Then he thought of Lucy again, and the heat of that thought drove from his mind any worries about people.

  That evening, Dixon sat up on the guest-room bed he shared with Melody. "Poor miserable bastard," he said as he peeled off the rubber he was wearing. "I wonder if I if should have offered him one of these."

  "That never occurred to me." Melody sat languor afterward was not her style. She looked again. “Do you think he could have used one."

  Dixon had been half joking, or more than half he gave it some serious thought, and regretfully shook his head. "I doubt it. I massacred a fair number of them learning how, and

  I suspect he wouldn't care if he tore one putting it on. Sims aren't careful over details like that."

  "No, they aren't," Melody admitted, adding, "A lot of people aren't, either."

  "I suppose not, " Dixon said. "But if a man didn't like a rubber, he probably wouldn't take it off halfway through and go on without it.

  I'm afraid Matt might. That's the other reason I didn't think I ought to try to give him one."

  "I'II tell you why I like rubbers." Melody waited for Dixon to let out a questioning grunt. Then she said, "Because with them, you have to go clean up."

  "Harumph" in almost high dudgeon, he did just that.

  When he carne back to the bed, Melody was wearing a tshirt and a serious expression. "Ken, why did you get into the sim justice movement in the first place?" -"What brought that on?" he asked, blinking, as he sat down beside her.

  I don't know." Rather to his relief, she did not meet his eyes.

  But she did go on even so: "I suppose it's just that seem to keep emphasizing the ways sims are different from people, and less than people,
not the ways we're the same."

  "Melody, they are different from us," he said, as gentle as he could.

  Her mouth went wide and thin, a sure dam sign. All the same, he continued, "No matter how much you want justice for sims, that doesn't mean you'll ever see one elected censor, or even see one learn to read.

  I've known people, not you," he added hastily, "who sometimes seem to Forget that."

  "I don't think you answered me. Everything you sounds as though it ought to put you on the other side. Now she did look at him, in the same way she might at a roach on her salad plate

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," he said in some exasperation "Doesn't my being here count for anything? Look, as far as I can see, we have a responsibility to sims, just because aren't as smart as we are and can't stand against us wit] people on their side. That's always been true, I suppose it's especially true now that we have machines to drudge us instead of sims. We don't need to exploit them al and we shouldn't.

  All rights Do I pass? Can we go to sleep.

  She seemed taken aback at his vehemence, and needed as moment to col ect herself and nod. "All right," she said as he and turned out the light.

  "Good." He lay down beside her. His outbursts startled him a little, too. He thought about what he'd said. He believed all of it. That was not the problem.

  The problem, he eventually realized, was that he not given Melody al his reasons. One of them was the hope of being just where he was now, in bed with her.

  Would he have worked for Sims' justice without hope? He looked inside himself and decided he would appeased his conscience and let him slide toward sleep. More time on the road was coming tomorrow.

  Doris dumped the morning's pile of mail on Dr. Howard’s desk, then went back to her own station outside. Howard went quickly through the stack, dividing it he had to deal with now, things that could wait, and things that could go straight into the trash. The wastebasket gave a resounding metal ic clunk as he got rid of the stack.

  An insta-picture of a sim fel out of an envelope as he opened it.

  Swearing, the doctor pulled out the that accompanied the photo. The lead line shouted, MATT IS STILL FREE, Howard jabbed the intercom button with his thumb. Doris came on, he growled, "Fetch me Coleman. I just got another one."