Analog SFF, January-February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He fetched up in Diego Garcia. It wasn't quite directly opposite from Topeka, but it was close enough: undemanding, tropical, and smack-dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It was also one of the Space Authority's tracking stations.

  Several Wynstens between ‘65.03 and ‘65.04 went native—or as native as you can go on a decommissioned navy base, now run by the Space Authority.

  Other Wynstens, from ‘65.10 to ‘65.11, discovered that six months was about as much island life as they could take. At thirty-five, they were a bit old to go back to college, but there were lots of things they could do that had nothing to do with chemistry. They set off to Australia to find them.

  Wynsten Prime hung around Diego Garcia until the money ran out. By then he'd become drinking buddies with a couple of Space Authority techs. One thing led to another, and after he proved he could sober up when he wanted, the Space Authority checked his psych profile. Self-destruction wasn't yet part of it—that was still years away. Besides, his sense of duty was off the chart. Soon afterward, he was offered a job catching ice balls from the Outer System.

  It wasn't as glamorous as it sounded. The real work was done by specialists who intercepted comets and chopped them into bite-sized chunks. Then they fused the chunks into bergs that wouldn't break up under thrust and coated them with reflecting film to keep them nice and cold. Wynsten probably could have snagged a billet with one of the Outer System teams because much of the fusing and coating was nanochem and, tenure or not, he was a good chemist. But if he'd actually enjoyed chemistry, tenure wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

  Berg-catching was the better job for loners. You flew out to about the orbit of Jupiter, mated the tug to the docking slot left by its Outer-System counterpart, hooked up to the waiting reaction-mass cistern (also created in the Outer System), and rode a slow arc to the delivery point: generally L5, but sometimes lunar orbit, where bergs made handy refueling stations for deep-space launches.

  Anyone could pilot an ice tug. Mostly the job was just a matter of babysitting computers and providing a human presence for the folks back home to boss around on the off chance anything went wrong.

  The only real responsibility was not to botch a trajectory and threaten Earth or any other human hab. If you did—or even looked as though you might—some fast cruiser would be there quick to makes sure you didn't. But unless you were a real terrorist, the tug computers were way too sophisticated to let that happen, and the actual mechanics of the job weren't any different from a million-and-one computer games. Except that, coupled to a comet-berg, tug thrust is about a bajillionth of a gee, and everything happens in incredibly slow motion.

  Boring barely began to describe it, which was why tug pilots were always in demand. Worse, the job gave you way too much time to think. As his ship nudged mirror-bright blocks of ice through the uncaring black, he dwelt increasingly in the land of what-if, where roads not chosen tortured him like the sharp diamond-pricks of accusing stars.

  And now, as the hyperdrive twisted toward Saturn, an unanticipated side-effect had shown him the answer to every what-if he'd ever pondered—plus a myriad more he'd never thought to ask.

  * * * *

  The Marie Celeste was nearing its destination. In a timeless interlude that was not a time (and never could have been) Wynsten had been many things.

  He had been the bold child who dove among the lake sharks.

  He had studied music, history, and English lit.

  He had made all-state, in track.

  He had been even better at swimming, leading a relay team to an Olympic medal.

  He had found lasting love with the glistening runner-girl.

  He had done a Ph.D. in the wilds of Kamchatka and gotten tenure ... in geology.

  He had missed the bus ... and Grace.

  He had gone to Australia and wound up a lab tech after all ... in the endless glistening wastes of the Australian Antarctic Territory, where a man could think, but the thinking was good because it made you a poet.

  He had been wealthy as Croesus and an Indian Ocean beach bum; he had lived in post-apocalyptic monasticism and among the most amazing could-have-been technologies. There was even a Wynsten whose Space Authority had figured that as long as it had an FTL ship, it might as well get pictures from places like the Crab Nebula, even if the pilots didn't come back with them.

  Ironically, the only choices that were impossible were the ones that gave Wynsten Prime what he thought he wanted: where he tried too hard to catch the bus and stepped in front of it, or fell off a cliff, or pulled a suicidal trigger.

  * * * *

  In the world beyond hyperspace, the trip to Saturn was over in a heartbeat. But in that briefest of infinite interludes, Wynsten realized he could choose which of these lives he wanted to have lived. He couldn't start over, but he could ring any bell that had not been rung—unring any that had been.

  There was also time, in that world beyond the heartbeat, to think about mice and goldfish, opiate-drugged pilots and vanishing ships. Grace had once told him about Schrödinger's cat, which was neither dead nor alive but half of each until quantum mechanics determined which would be the case. Now, the Marie Celeste's hyperdrive had temporarily pried open the quantum choices, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened to his predecessors. They had found something better, leaving their ships to carry on without them.

  Wynsten was tempted to pick the runner-girl. Or the Olympic medal. There were plenty of women along that line, too. But as the timeless interlude of hyperspace stretched before him (but did not), he feared that none of these options would truly save him. Not unless he himself also changed.

  Wynsten's best selves had chosen to be bold, resistant to pressure, not “normal.” If he stepped into one of the worlds they had created, would he be them, or simply have a new life to screw up? Either way, the future was what he needed to control, not the past.

  He was the n-plus-one pilot. That meant that n before him had succumbed not to other people's expectations, but to temptation. Wynsten's sense of duty was still off the chart. For once, he could be both dutiful and different.

  In the fading moments of that endless interlude, which was not a time but could have been anything, Wynsten felt the stark, cleansing glare of Antarctica, tasted the warm breath of the woman whose love could no longer be. And then, slowly, it faded.

  * * * *

  The ship winked into existence precisely on schedule, and Wynsten found himself looking at the underside of Saturn's rings, gorgeously illuminated by high-angle sunlight. He was surprised to be alive but, even more surprisingly, not as disappointed as he would have expected. He couldn't remember much of what had happened in hyperspace, only that somehow he had chosen this and that that choice was the key.

  He might be on an FTL ship, but it still used old-fashioned radio. He could push the return button and be back long before any message could get there, but if there was ever a time for the campy or pithy remark, this was it. Already the computers had found their bearings and were preparing to send the life-support telemetry: the amazing news that he was the Solar System's first successful hyperpilot.

  He hadn't exactly rehearsed this speech, but given his farewell message, there was only one choice.

  “Hi,” he said.

  Then he settled back to await the reply. They'd probably want him to come straight home for a boatload of tests. But he wasn't sure how much that would help them because for some reason he suspected that hyperpilots were a rare breed.

  Meanwhile, he felt the stirrings of something he'd not felt for a very long time—so long that it took quite a while to realize that it felt amazingly like a hint of tranquility. Maybe it was just the setting, which was wondrously more interesting than watching reflected images in an ice ball. The rings were a sight to take his breath away, vaguely reminiscent of Antarctica, which was strange because he'd never been there.

  Then came another odd thought. Next time, I want to go to the Crab Neb
ula.

  Copyright © 2006 Richard A. Lovett

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  * * *

  If Only We Knew

  by Jerry Oltion

  Uncertainty we have always with us, but some have a good deal more than others....

  When the ultrasound technician gasped in surprise, Robert knew something was amiss. He'd already begun to suspect that echocardiograms weren't standard for life insurance applicants, despite Dr. Sorenson's good-natured assurance that this was “just a routine check to make sure everything's where it ought to be.” Something in the doctor's voice had rung hollow, and now the technician's little gasp confirmed it.

  “I don't like the sound of that,” Robert said.

  “It's all right,” she replied automatically. “I mean, it's, well ... could you lean a bit more toward me? Thank you."

  She had been holding the probe against his rib cage just below his left armpit, and he had been trying not to flinch at the way it tickled against his bare skin; now she slid it an inch or two toward his nipple and looked up at her monitor again. Robert craned his neck to see the image, too. It was surprisingly sharp, a black and white motion picture of his heart beating in real time, the chambers pulsing rhythmically and the valves flapping back and forth with each contraction. The technician pressed a key on the keyboard below the monitor and the image froze for a second—apparently she had just taken a snapshot of his heart—then she moved the probe down his chest, and the plane of focus slipped down with it from the top chambers into the bottom ones, then past another set of valves into the...

  “Aren't there supposed to be just four chambers?"

  She nodded.

  “So, is that some kind of reflected signal, then?"

  “I don't think so.” She took another snapshot and moved the probe down under his armpit again. “Take a little breath and hold it, please."

  He did. The only sound in the room was the ultrasound unit's cooling fan and his own heartbeat, increasing in tempo. The screen showed three distinct chambers in a row, each with little tunnels in the walls: presumably arteries and veins carrying blood to and from the rest of his body. The technician recorded that view, then slid the probe farther toward his back, and three more chambers slid into focus beside the first.

  “I've got a six-chambered heart,” Robert said.

  The technician recorded that view as well, then lifted the probe away from his chest. The image on the screen washed away in static. “That appears to be the case."

  “How, uh, how common is that?"

  Her expression as she looked down at him on the examination table—like a B-movie heroine trying desperately not to scream as the monster rises out of the swamp—made him wish he hadn't asked.

  “Just a moment,” she said. She stood up, her stool rolling back to bump against the wall beside the door. “I'll go get the doctor. Don't go anywhere."

  She slipped out and closed the door behind her, leaving him alone with the ultrasound machine and his own astonishment. He hadn't really expected to find any trouble today; he was only there to qualify for life insurance. He was twenty-four and had never been seriously ill, and until a few minutes ago he had never felt better. He and Elaine had been married for six months, and they were deliriously happy to be so; happy enough to decide to start a family soon. Hence the insurance. He wanted to make sure she and the children would be provided for if anything happened to him.

  The ultrasound probe dangled near the floor where the technician had left it. Robert pulled it up by its cord and examined the business end: just a smooth gray surface, slightly rounded so it would slide over a person's skin, and covered with conductant gel. The stuff smelled faintly of shampoo.

  He pressed the probe against his side where the technician had been holding it and was rewarded with a fuzzy image of his heart on the screen. He pushed more firmly and the image cleared up, so he traced the six separate heart chambers again. He found what he assumed to be his aorta rising from the top chamber and followed that as it looped around and headed downward, but he couldn't see it behind his heart so he moved sideways and followed his pulmonary arteries into his lungs. He couldn't actually see his lungs, but he could see the arteries branching out into smaller and smaller clusters, except for the one that led to the cylindrical blob directly beneath his breastbone. He wondered what that was. He had a fair grasp of anatomy from high-school and college biology classes, but he didn't remember any cylindrical organs between the heart and the lungs.

  Nor the doughnut-shaped thing just below that. The conductant didn't spread far enough to let him get a good image of it, so he took the bottle from its holder next to the monitor and squirted a dollop of gel on the probe, then tried again. It was cold at first touch, but it warmed quickly, and the image was much better. Now he could see the striations running around the doughnut, like strips of muscle or gill slits or radiator plates or something.

  The door opened again and Dr. Sorenson entered, with the technician hot on his heels. The doctor was at least two decades older than Robert, his hair going gray where he hadn't already lost it, and he wore a frown as comfortably as he wore his lab coat. Robert nearly dropped the probe, instinctively expecting to be scolded for playing with it, but the oddity of the situation overwhelmed his normal reaction, and he managed to keep the probe centered on his chest.

  “It's stranger than you thought,” he said, nodding toward the screen.

  * * * *

  The doctor found three more unidentified organs and several anomalies in Robert's liver, kidneys, and intestinal tract. Robert had stopped looking at the screen after a while, just lying back on the exam table and listening to the doctor and the technician exclaim in wonder at each new discovery. He hardly felt the probe against his skin anymore, even when the doctor slid it along his sides. Elaine couldn't touch him there without provoking the giggles, but there was no danger of him giggling now.

  “How can this be?” he asked.

  “It's obviously some kind of mutation,” the doctor replied without looking at him. “Did your parents work in a chemical plant or a nuclear facility before you were born?"

  “Mom's a schoolteacher,” Robert said. “And Dad's a car salesman. Besides, a mutation this extreme would have left me dead during gestation. This is a whole sequence of changes, not just one flipped bit of DNA."

  “Mmm.” Dr. Sorenson rocked the probe back and forth across Robert's breastbone. “I'd like to get some x-rays. There's something odd about the rib cage as well."

  Not “your rib cage,” Robert noticed. Already it was “the rib cage.” He raised up on his elbows and faced the doctor. “I'm not sure I can handle any more today. This is a bit of a shock, you know."

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Dr. Sorenson said. He lifted the ultrasound probe and set it on the equipment tray beside the monitor. “I'm sure it would be. It's, uh, certainly not what you expected when you came in, is it?"

  “No."

  The doctor pushed a button on the machine's keyboard, and an image of Robert's six-chambered heart popped up on the monitor again. He pressed the key a few more times, cycling through the snapshots he and the technician had taken. “The good news is, you're apparently in fine health despite all these ... anomalies. Whatever their cause, they seem to be working together as well as the standard equipment."

  “You'll certify me for the life insurance, then?"

  The doctor frowned. “I'm afraid I couldn't do that. Not without a great deal more information.” He paused, looking from Robert to the technician and back. “You, uh, never had any indication that something might be different? Special abilities, or different range of hearing, or ... I don't know. Anything out of the ordinary?"

  “You mean, can I leap tall buildings in a single bound? I'm afraid not. My hearing has always been pretty good, and my eyesight is 20/15, but that's about it. I'm not any stronger or better at sports than the average guy."

  “How did you do on your SATs?"

  “H
uh?"

  “Your college entrance exams."

  “Oh. Okay. Pretty well, actually. But I'm not a genius."

  Dr. Sorenson clicked his tongue a couple of times. “I'd like your permission to show these results to a couple of specialists, see if they've ever seen anything like this before. There may be some precedent I'm not aware of."

  “No,” Robert said. “I mean, not yet. I just—” He lay back on the table. “Once this gets out, I'm not going to get a moment's rest. The AMA is going to get involved, and the CDC, and maybe the FBI and the CIA and who knows who else? I wouldn't be surprised if the INS got in on it."

  “The INS?"

  “Immigration and Naturalization Service. They could argue that I'm an illegal alien. Right now is a really crappy time to be different in America.” A bead of sweat ran down his forehead toward his left eye. He wiped it off, then held his wet hand awkwardly above his chest.

  The technician had been standing beside the doctor, looking over his shoulder and staying out of his way. Now she picked up a towel from the equipment tray and handed it to Robert. “You can use this to wipe off the gel, too,” she said.

  “Thank you."

  The towel was institutional white and scratchy, but Robert took it gladly and began rubbing at his chest and sides. He sat up and said to the doctor, “I'd appreciate it if you didn't let the insurance company know about this, either. Just tell them I don't qualify."

  The doctor considered that for a moment, then nodded. “All right."

  “The longer you keep this to yourself, the more we'll both learn about it,” Robert told him. “The moment this blows up on us, we'll both be out of the loop."

  “Oh, come now.” The stool squeaked as Dr. Sorenson shifted his weight. “You're talking like this is some kind of threat to national security. You're a medical curiosity, certainly, and if we can learn how you got to be that way we might gain some insight into how the human body works, but you're hardly a menace to society."