The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection
Page 22
“According to the catalog,” I said, “the No. 2 Insect Option is supposed to make me into a successful competitor for a middle-management niche, with triggerable responses that can be useful in gaining entry to upper hierarchical levels. Unquote.” Of course, that was just ad talk—I didn’t really expect it to do all that. “That’s what I want. I want to be in charge. I want to be the boss.”
“Maybe you should go back to BioEngineering and try again,” said Greg. “Sometimes the hormones don’t do what you expect. Look at my tongue, for instance.” He unfurled it gently and rolled it back into his mouth. “Though I’m sort of getting to like it.” He sucked at his drink, making disgusting slurping sounds. He didn’t need a straw.
“Don’t bother with it, Margaret,” said David firmly, taking a cup of rosehip tea from the waiter. “Bioengineering is a waste of time and money and millions of years of evolution. If human beings were intended to be managers, we’d have evolved pin-striped body covering.”
“That’s cleverly put,” I said, “but it’s dead wrong.”
The waiter brought our lunches, and we stopped talking as he put them in front of us. It seemed like the anticipatory silence of three very hungry people, but was in fact the polite silence of three people who have been brought up not to argue in front of disinterested bystanders. As soon as he left, we resumed the discussion.
“I mean it,” David said. “The dubious survival benefits of management aside, bioengineering is a waste of effort. Harry Winthrop, for instance, doesn’t need B-E at all. Here he is, fresh out of business school, audibly buzzing with lust for a high-level management position. Basically he’s just marking time until a presidency opens up somewhere. And what gives him the edge over you is his youth and inexperience, not some specialized primate adaptation.”
“Well,” I said with some asperity, “he’s not constrained by a knowledge of what’s failed in the past, that’s for sure. But saying that doesn’t solve my problem, David. Harry’s signed up. I’ve signed up. The changes are under way and I don’t have any choice.”
I squeezed a huge glob of honey into my tea from a plastic bottle shaped like a teddy bear. I took a sip of the tea; it was minty and very sweet. “And now I’m turning into the wrong kind of insect. It’s ruined my ability to deal with Product Marketing.”
“Oh, give it a rest!” said Greg suddenly. “This is so boring. I don’t want to hear any more about corporate hugger-mugger. Let’s talk about something that’s fun.”
I had had enough of Greg’s lepidopterate lack of concentration. “Something that’s fun? I’ve invested all my time and most of my genetic material in this job. This is all the goddamn fun there is.”
The honeyed tea made me feel hot. My stomach itched—I wondered if I was having an allergic reaction. I scratched, and not discreetly. My hand came out from under my shirt full of little waxy scales. What the hell was going on under there? I tasted one of the scales; it was wax all right. Worker bee changes? I couldn’t help myself—I stuffed the wax into my mouth.
David was busying himself with his alfalfa sprouts, but Greg looked disgusted. “That’s gross, Margaret,” he said. He made a face, sticking his tongue part way out. Talk about gross. “Can’t you wait until after lunch?”
I was doing what came naturally, and did not dignify his statement with a response. There was a side dish of bee pollen on the table. I took a spoonful and mixed it with the wax, chewing noisily. I’d had a rough morning, and bickering with Greg wasn’t making the day more pleasant.
Besides, neither he nor David has any real respect for my position in the company. Greg doesn’t take my job seriously at all. And David simply does what he wants to do, regardless of whether it makes any money, for himself or anyone else. He was giving me a back-to-nature lecture, and it was far too late for that.
This whole lunch was a waste of time. I was tired of listening to them, and felt an intense urge to get back to work. A couple of quick stings distracted them both: I had the advantage of surprise. I ate some more honey and quickly waxed them over. They were soon hibernating side by side in two large octagonal cells.
I looked around the restaurant. People were rather nervously pretending not to have noticed. I called the waiter over and handed him my credit card. He signaled to several bus boys, who brought a covered cart and took Greg and David away. “They’ll eat themselves out of that by Thursday afternoon,” I told him. “Store them on their sides in a warm, dry place, away from direct heat.” I left a large tip.
* * *
I walked back to the office, feeling a bit ashamed of myself. A couple days of hibernation weren’t going to make Greg or David more sympathetic to my problems. And they’d be real mad when they got out.
I didn’t use to do things like that. I used to be more patient, didn’t I? More appreciative of the diverse spectrum of human possibility. More interested in sex and television.
This job was not doing much for me as a warm, personable human being. At the very least, it was turning me into an unpleasant lunch companion. Whatever had made me think I wanted to get into management anyway?
The money, maybe.
But that wasn’t all. It was the challenge, the chance to do something new, to control the total effort instead of just doing part of a project.…
The money too, though. There were other ways to get money. Maybe I should just kick the supports out from under the damn job and start over again.
I saw myself sauntering into Tom’s office, twirling his visitor’s chair around and falling into it. The words “I quit” would force their way out, almost against my will. His face would show surprise—feigned, of course. By then I’d have to go through with it. Maybe I’d put my feet up on his desk. And then—
But was it possible to just quit, to go back to being the person I used to be? No, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d never be a management virgin again.
I walked up to the employee entrance at the rear of the building. A suction device next to the door sniffed at me, recognized my scent, and clicked the door open. Inside, a group of new employees, trainees, were clustered near the door, while a personnel officer introduced them to the lock and let it familiarize itself with their pheromones.
On the way down the hall, I passed Tom’s office. The door was open. He was at his desk, bowed over some papers, and looked up as I went by.
“Ah, Margaret,” he said. “Just the person I want to talk to. Come in for a minute, would you.” He moved a large file folder onto the papers in front of him on his desk, and folded his hands on top of them. “So glad you were passing by.” He nodded toward a large, comfortable chair. “Sit down.”
“We’re going to be doing a bit of restructuring in the department,” he began, “and I’ll need your input, so I want to fill you in now on what will be happening.”
I was immediately suspicious. Whenever Tom said “I’ll need your input,” he meant everything was decided already.
“We’ll be reorganizing the whole division, of course,” he continued, drawing little boxes on a blank piece of paper. He’d mentioned this at the department meeting last week.
“Now, your group subdivides functionally into two separate areas, wouldn’t you say?”
“Well—”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, nodding his head as though in agreement. “That would be the way to do it.” He added a few lines and a few more boxes. From what I could see, it meant that Harry would do all the interesting stuff and I’d sweep up afterwards.
“Looks to me as if you’ve cut the balls out of my area and put them over into Harry Winthrop’s,” I said.
“Ah, but your area is still very important, my dear. That’s why I don’t have you actually reporting to Harry.” He gave me a smile like a lie.
He had put me in a tidy little bind. After all, he was my boss. If he was going to take most of my area away from me, as it seemed he was, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. And I would be better off if we both pr
etended that I hadn’t experienced any loss of status. That way I kept my title and my salary.
“Oh, I see.” I said. “Right.”
It dawned on me that this whole thing had been decided already, and that Harry Winthrop probably knew all about it. He’d probably even wangled a raise out of it. Tom had called me in here to make it look casual, to make it look as though I had something to say about it. I’d been set up.
This made me mad. There was no question of quitting now. I’d stick around and fight. My eyes blurred, unfocused, refocused again. Compound eyes! The promise of the small comb in my hand was fulfilled! I felt a deep chemical understanding of the ecological system I was now a part of. I knew where I fit in. And I knew what I was going to do. It was inevitable now, hardwired in at the DNA level.
The strength of this conviction triggered another change in the chitin, and for the first time I could actually feel the rearrangement of my mouth and nose, a numb tickling like inhaling seltzer water. The stiletto receded and mandibles jutted forth, rather like Katharine Hepburn. Form and function achieved an orgasmic synchronicity. As my jaw pushed forward, mantis-like, it also opened, and I pounced on Tom and bit his head off.
He leaped from his desk and danced headless about the office.
I felt in complete control of myself as I watched him and continued the conversation. “About the Model 2000 launch,” I said. “If we factor in the demand for pipeline throughput and adjust the media mix just a bit, I think we can present a very tasty little package to Product Marketing by the end of the week.”
Tom continued to strut spasmodically, making vulgar copulative motions. Was I responsible for evoking these mantid reactions? I was unaware of a sexual component in our relationship.
I got up from the visitor’s chair and sat behind his desk, thinking about what had just happened. It goes without saying that I was surprised at my own actions. I mean, irritable is one thing, but biting people’s heads off is quite another. But I have to admit that my second thought was, well, this certainly is a useful strategy, and should make a considerable difference in my ability to advance myself. Hell of a lot more productive than sucking people’s blood.
Maybe there was something after all to Tom’s talk about having the proper attitude.
And, of course, thinking of Tom, my third reaction was regret. He really had been a likeable guy, for the most part. But what’s done is done, you know, and there’s no use chewing on it after the fact.
I buzzed his assistant on the intercom. “Arthur,” I said, “Mr. Samson and I have come to an evolutionary parting of the ways. Please have him re-engineered. And charge it to Personnel.”
Now I feel an odd itching on my forearms and thighs. Notches on which I might fiddle a song?
NANCY KRESS
In Memoriam
Born in Buffalo, New York, Nancy Kress now lives with her family in Brockport, New York. She began selling her elegant and incisive stories in the mid-’70s, and has since become a frequent contributer to IAsfm, F & SF, Omni, and elsewhere. Her books include the novels The Prince of Morning Bells, The Golden Grove, and The White Pipes, and the collection Trinity and Other Stories. Her most recent book is the novel An Alien Light. Her story “Trinity” was in our Second Annual Collection; her “Out of All Them Bright Stars”—a Nebula winner—was in our Third Annual Collection.
Here she spins an eloquent and razor-sharp tale of the persistence of memory.
IN MEMORIAM
Nancy Kress
As soon as Aaron followed me into the garden, I knew he was angry. He pursed his mouth, that sweet exaggerated fullness of lips that hadn’t changed since he was two years old and that looked silly on the middle-aged man he had become. But he said nothing—in itself a sign of trouble. Oh, I knew him through and through. As well as I knew his father, as well as his father had known me.
Aaron closed the door behind us and walked to the lawn chairs, skirting the tiny shrine as if it weren’t there. He lowered himself gingerly into a chair.
“Be careful,” I said, pointlessly. “Your back again?”
He waved this remark away; even as a little boy he had hated to have attention called to any physical problem. A skinned knee, a stiff neck, a broken wrist. I remembered. I remembered everything.
“Coffee? A splash?”
“Coffee. Come closer, I don’t want to shout. You don’t have your hearing field on, do you?”
I didn’t. I poured him his coffee from the lawn bar and floated my chair close enough to hand it to him. Next door, Todd came out of his house, dressed in shorts and carrying a trowel. He waved cheerfully.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Aaron began—he had never been one for small talk, never one for subtlety—“but I have to say it one more time. Listen to Dr. Lorsky about the operation.”
“Sugar?”
“Black. Mom—”
“Be quiet,” I said, and he looked startled enough, but his surprise wasn’t followed by a scowl. Aaron, who always reacted to a direct order as if to assault. I sat up straighter and peered at him. No scowl.
He took a long, deliberate sip of coffee, which was too hot for long sips. “Is there a reason you won’t listen to Dr. Lorsky? A real, rational reason?” He didn’t look at the shrine.
“You know the reason,” I said. Thirty feet away in his side yard, Todd began to weed his flower beds, digging out the most stubborn weeds with the trowel, pulling the rest by hand. He never used a power hoe. The flowers, snapdragons and yarrow and azaleas and lemondrop marigolds, crowded together in the brief hot riot of midsummer.
Aaron waggled his fingers at the shrine he still wouldn’t see. “That’s not a reason!”
He was right, of course—the shrine was effect, not cause. I smiled at his perceptiveness, unable to help the sly, silly glow of a maternal pride thirty years out of date. But Aaron took the smile for something else: acquiesence, perhaps, or weakening. He put his cup on the grass and leaned forward. Earnestly—he had been such an earnest little boy, unsmiling in the face of jokes he didn’t understand, putting his toys away in the exact same spots each night, presenting his teenage demands in carefully numbered lists, lecturing the other boys on their routine childish brutality.
A prig, actually.
“Mom, listen to me. I’m asking you to reconsider. That’s all. For three reasons. First, because it’s getting dangerous for you to live out here all alone. Despite the electronic surveillance. What if you were robbed?”
“Robbed,” I said dryly. Aaron didn’t catch it; I didn’t really expect him to. He knew why I had bought this house, why I stayed in it. I said gently, “Your coffee’s getting cold.” He ignored me, pressing doggedly on, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. On the back of the left hand were two liver spots. When had that happened?
“Second, this business of ancestor worship or whatever it’s supposed to be. This shrine. You never believed in this nonsense before. You raised me to think rationally, without superstition, and here you are planting flowers to your dead forebears unto the nth generation and meditating to them like you were some teenaged wirehead split-brain.”
“We used to meditate a lot when I was a girl, before wireheads were invented,” I said, to annoy him. His intensity was scaring me. “But Aaron, darling, that’s not what I do here.”
“What do you do?” he said, and immediately, I could see, regretted it. The shrine shone lustrous in the sunlight. It was a triptych of black slabs two feet high. In the late afternoon heat, the black neo-nitonol had softened into featurelessness, but when night fell, the names would again spring into hard-etched clarity. Hundreds of tiny names, engraved close together in meticulous script, linked with the lines of generation. At the base of the triptych bloomed low flowers: violets and forget-me-nots and rosemary.
“‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,’” I said, but Aaron, being Aaron, didn’t recognize Ophelia’s line. Not a reader, my Aaron. Bytes not books. Oh, I remembered.
“It isn’t healthy,” Aaron said. “Shrines. Ancestor worship! And in the third place, time is running out for you to have the operation. I spoke to Dr. Lorsky yesterday—”
“You spoke to my doctor without my permission—”
“—and he said your temporal lobes still scan well but he can’t say how much longer that will be true. There’s that cut-off point where the body just can’t handle it anymore. And then the brain wipe wouldn’t do you any good. It would be too late. Mom—you know.”
I knew. The sheer weight of memory reached some critical mass. All those memories: the shade of blue of a dress worn fifty years ago, the tilt of the head of someone long dead, the sudden sharp smell of a grandmother’s cabbage soup mingled with the dusty scent of an apartment razed for two decades. And each memory bringing on others, a rush of them, till the grandmother was there before you, whole. The burden and bulk of all those minute sensations over days and years and decades, triggering chemical changes in the brain which in turn trigger cellular changes, until the body cannot bear any more and breakdown accelerates. The cut-off point. It is our memories that kill us.
Aaron groped with one hand for his coffee cup, beside his chair on the grass. The crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes were still tentative, like lines scratched in soft sand. He ducked his head and mumbled. “I just … I just don’t want you to die, Mom.”
I looked away. It is always, somehow, a surprise to find that an adult child still loves you.
Next door, Todd straightened from one flower bed and moved to the next. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground. Sweat gleamed on the muscles of his back, still hard and taut in his mid-thirties body. The shirt made a dark patch on the bright grass.
A bee buzzed up from the flowers around the black triptych and circled by my ear. Glad of the distraction, I waved it away.