The Year's Best SF 12 # 1994

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  I do not know how much it knows, does it understand the process of jessing? “The Mashahana says that just as a jessed hawk is tamed, not tied, so shall the servant be bound by affection and duty, not chains.”

  “Does the Mashahana say it should not make you sad, Diyet?”

  Can something not human blaspheme?

  * * *

  In the morning, Mardin calls me into his office. He offers me tea, translucent green and fragrant with flowers, which I sip, regarding my sandals and my pink toenails. He pages through my morning report, nodding, making pleased noises, occasionally slurping his tea. Afternoons and evenings, Mardin is at his restaurant. I have never been in it, but I understand that it is an exceptional place.

  “What will you do this afternoon?” he asks.

  It is my afternoon free. “My childhood friend, Kari, and I will go shopping, Mardin-salah.”

  “Ah,” he says, smiling. “Spend a little extra silver,” he says, “buy yourself earrings or something. I’ll see the credit is available.”

  I murmur my thanks. He makes a show of paging through the report, and the sheets of paper whisper against each other.

  “And what do you think of the harni, Akhmim? Is he working out?”

  “I do not spend so much time with it, Mardin-salah. Its work is with the men’s household.”

  “You are an old-fashioned girl, Diyet, that is good.” Mardin-salah holds the report a little farther away, striking a very dignified pose in his reading. “Harni have social training, but no practice. The merchant recommended to me that I send it out to talk and meet with people as much as possible.”

  I wriggle my toes. He has stopped referring to it as if it were a person, which is good, but now he is going to try to send it with me. “I must meet my friend Kari at her home in the Nekropolis, Mardin-salah. Perhaps it is not a good place to take a harni.” The Nekropolis is a conservative place.

  Mardin-salah waves his hand airily. “Everything is in order, Diyet,” he says, referring to the reports in front of him. “My wife has asked that you use a little more scent with the linens.”

  His wife thinks I am too cheap. Mardin-salah likes to think that he runs a frugal household. He does not, money hemorrhages from this house, silver pours from the walls and runs down the street into the pockets of everyone in this city. She wanted to buy it, I am certain. She is like that, she enjoys toys. Surrounds herself with things, projects still more things, until it is difficult to know what is in her quarters and what comes out of the walls. She probably saw it and had to have it, the way she had to have the little long-haired dog with the overbite, her little lion dog—nasty little thing that Fadina has to feed and bathe. Fadina is her body servant.

  I hope Mardin will forget about the harni, but he doesn’t. There is no respite. I must take it with me.

  It is waiting for me after lunch. I am wearing lavender and pale yellow, with long yellow ribbons tied around my wrists.

  “Jessed, Diyet,” it says. “You wouldn’t have me along if you weren’t.”

  Of course I am jessed. I always wear ribbons when I go out. “The Mashahana says ribbons are a symbol of devotion to the Most Holy, as well as an earthly master.”

  It runs its long fingers through its curly hair, shakes its head, and its golden earring dances. Artifice, the pretense of humanity. Although I guess even a harni’s hair gets in its eyes. “Why would you choose to be jessed?” it asks.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I say, “come along.”

  It never takes offense, never worries about offending. “Can you tell the difference between the compulsion and your own feelings?” it asks.

  “Jessing only heightens my natural tendencies,” I say.

  “Then why are you so sad?” it asks.

  “I am not sad!” I snap.

  “I am sorry,” it says immediately. Blessedly, it is silent while we go down to the tube. I point which direction we are going and it nods and follows. I get a seat on the tube and it stands in front of me. It glances down at me. Smiles. I fancy it looks as if it feels pity for me. (Artifice. Does the cleaning machine feel sorry for anyone? Even itself? Does the household intelligence? The body chemistry of a harni may be based on humanity, but it is carefully calculated.)

  It wears a white shirt. I study my toenails.

  The tube lets us off at the edge of the Nekropolis, at the Moussin of the White Falcon. Mourners in white stand outside the Moussin, and I can faintly smell the incense on the hot air. The sun is blinding after the cool dark tube, and the Moussin and the mourners’ robes are painful to look at. They are talking and laughing. Often, mourners haven’t seen each other for years, family is spread all across the country.

  The harni looks around, as curious as a child or a jackdaw. The Nekropolis is all white stone, the doorways open onto blackness.

  I grew up in the Nekropolis. We didn’t have running water, it was delivered every day in a big lorritank and people would go out and buy it by the karn, and we lived in three adjoining mausoleums instead of a flat, but other than that, it was a pretty normal childhood. I have a sister and two brothers. My mother sells paper funeral decorations, so the Nekropolis is a very good place for her to live, no long tube rides every day. The part we lived in was old. Next to my bed were the dates for the person buried behind the wall, 3673 to 3744. All of the family was dead hundreds of years ago, no one ever came to this death house to lay out paper flowers and birds. In fact, when I was four, we bought the rights to this place from an old woman whose family had lived here a long time before us.

  Our house always smelled of cinnamon and the perfume my mother used on her paper flowers and birds. In the middle death-house, there were funeral arrangements everywhere, and when we ate we would clear a space on the floor and sit surrounded. When I was a little girl, I learned the different uses of papers; how my mother used translucent tissue for carnations, stiff satiny brittle paper for roses, and strong paper with a grain like linen for arrogant falcons. As children, we all smelled of perfume, and when I stayed the night with my friend Kari, she would wrap her arms around my waist and whisper in my neck, “You smell so good.”

  I am not waiting for the harni. It has to follow, it has no credit for the tube ride. If it isn’t paying attention and gets lost, it will have to walk home.

  When I glance back a block and a half later, it is following me, its long curly hair wild about its shoulders, its face turned artlessly toward the sun. Does it enjoy the feeling of sunlight on skin? Probably, that is a basic biological pleasure. It must enjoy things like eating.

  Kari comes out, running on light feet. “Diyet!” she calls. She still lives across from my mother but now she has a husband and a pretty two-year-old-daughter, a chubby toddler with black hair and clear skin the color of amber. Tariam, the little girl, stands clinging to the doorway, her thumb in her mouth. Kari grabs my wrists and her bracelets jingle. “Come out of the heat!” She glances past me and says, “Who is this?”

  The harni stands there, one hand on his hip, smiling.

  Kari drops my wrists and pulls a little at her rose colored veil. She smiles, thinking of course that I have brought a handsome young man with me.

  “It is a harni,” I say and laugh, shrill and nervous. “Mardin-salah asked me to bring him with me.”

  “A harni?” she asks, her voice doubtful.

  I wave my hand. “You know the mistress, always wanting toys. He is in charge of the men’s household.” “He,” I say. I meant “it.” “It is in charge.” But I don’t correct myself, not wanting to call attention to my error.

  “I am called Akhmim,” it says smoothly. “You are a friend of Diyet’s?”

  Its familiarity infuriates me. Here I am, standing on the street in front of my mother’s house, and it is pretending to be a man, with no respect for my reputation. If it is a man, what am I doing escorting a strange man? And if people know it is a harni, that is as bad. In the Nekropolis, people do not even like AI like the cleanin
g machine.

  “Kari,” I say, “Let’s go.”

  She looks at the harni a moment more, then goes back to her little girl, picks her up, and carries her inside. Normally I would go inside, sit and talk with her mother, Ena. I would hold Tariam on my lap and wish I had a little girl with perfect tiny fingernails and such a clean, sweet milk smell. It would be cool and dark inside, the environment controlled, and we would eat honeysweets and drink tea. I would go across the street, see my mother and youngest brother, who is the only one at home now.

  The harni stands in the street, looking at the ground. It seems uncomfortable. It does not look at me; at least it has the decency to make it appear we are not together.

  Kari comes out, bracelets ringing. While we shop, she does not refer to the harni, but, as it follows us, she glances back at it often. I glance back and it flashes a white smile. It seems perfectly content to trail along, looking at the market stalls with their red canopies.

  “Maybe we should let him walk with us,” Kari says. “It seems rude to ignore him.”

  I laugh, full of nervousness. “It’s not human.”

  “Does it have feelings?” Kari asks.

  I shrug. “After a fashion. It is AI.”

  “It doesn’t look like a machine,” she says.

  “It’s not a machine,” I say, irritated with her.

  “How can it be AI if it is not a machine?” she presses.

  “Because it’s manufactured. A technician’s creation. An artificial combination of genes, grown somewhere.”

  “Human genes?”

  “Probably,” I say. “Maybe some animal genes. Maybe some that they made up themselves, how would I know?” It is ruining my afternoon. “I wish it would offer to go home.”

  “Maybe he can’t,” Kari says. “If Mardin-salah told him to come, he would have to, wouldn’t he?”

  I don’t really know anything about harni.

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” Kari says. “Harni,” she calls, “come here.”

  He tilts his head, all alert. “Yes, mistress?”

  “Are harni prescripted for taste?” she inquires.

  “What do you mean, the taste of food?” he asks. “I can taste, just as you do, although,” he smiles, “I personally am not overly fond of cherries.”

  “No, no,” Kari says. “Colors, clothing. Are you capable of helping make choices? About earrings for example?”

  He comes to look at the choices, and selects a pair of gold and rose enamel teardrops and holds them up for her. “I think my taste is no better than that of the average person,” he says, “but I like these.”

  She frowns, looks at him through her lashes. She has got me thinking of it as “him.” And she is flirting with him! Kari! A married woman!

  “What do you think, Diyet?” she asks. She takes the earrings, holds one beside her face. “They are pretty.”

  “I think they’re gaudy.”

  She is hurt. In truth, they suit her.

  She frowns at me. “I’ll take them,” she says. The stallman names a price.

  “No, no, no,” says the harni, “you should not buy them, this man is a thief.” He reaches to touch her, as if he would pull her away, and I hold my breath in shock—if the thing should touch her!

  But the stallman interrupts with a lower price. The harni bargains. He is a good bargainer, but he should be, he has no compassion, no concern for the stallkeeper. Charity is a human virtue. The Mashahana says, “A human in need becomes every man’s child.”

  Interminable, this bargaining, but finally, the earrings are Kari’s. “We should stop and have some tea,” she says.

  “I have a headache,” I say, “I think I should go home.”

  “If Diyet is ill, we should go,” the harni says.

  Kari looks at me, looks away, guilty. She should feel guilt.

  * * *

  I come down the hall to access the Household AI and the harni is there. Apparently busy, but waiting for me. “I’ll be finished in a minute and out of your way,” it says. Beautiful fingers, wrist bones, beautiful face, and dark curling hair showing just where its shirt closes; it is constructed elegantly. Lean and long-legged, like a hound. When the technician constructed it, did he know how it would look when it was grown? Are they designed aesthetically?

  It takes the report and steps aside, but does not go on with its work. I ignore it, doing my work as if it were not there, standing so it is behind me.

  “Why don’t you like me?” it finally asks.

  I consider my answers. I could say it is a thing, not something to like or dislike, but that isn’t true. I like my bed, my things. “Because of your arrogance,” I say to the system.

  A startled hiss of indrawn breath. “My … arrogance?” it asks.

  “Your presumption.” It is hard to keep my voice steady, every time I am around the harni I find myself hating the way I speak.

  “I … I am sorry, Diyet,” it whispers. “I have so little experience, I didn’t realize I had insulted you.”

  I am tempted to turn around and look at it, but I do not. It does not really feel pain, I remind myself. It is a thing, it has no more feelings than a fish. Less.

  “Please, tell me what I have done?”

  “Your behavior. This conversation, here,” I say. “You are always trying to make people think that you are human.”

  Silence. Is it considering? Or would it be better to say processing?

  “You blame me for being what I am,” the harni says. It sighs. “I cannot help being what I am.”

  I wait for it to say more, but it doesn’t. I turn around, but it is gone.

  * * *

  After that, every time it sees me, if it can it makes some excuse to avoid me. I do not know if I am grateful or not. I am very uncomfortable.

  My tasks are not complicated; I see to the cleaning machine, and set it loose in the women’s household when it will not inconvenience the mistress. I am jessed to Mardin, although I serve the mistress. I am glad I am not jessed to her; Fadina is, and she has to put up with a great deal. I am careful never to blame the mistress in front of her. Let her blame the stupid little dog for crapping on the rug. She knows that the mistress is unreasonable, but of course, emotionally, she is bound to affection and duty.

  On Friday mornings, the mistress is usually in her rooms, preparing for her Sunday bismek. On Friday afternoons, she goes out to play the Tiles with her friends and gossip about husbands and the wives who aren’t there. I clean on Friday afternoons. I call the cleaning machine and it follows me down the hallway like a dog, snuffling along the baseboards for dust.

  I open the door and smell attar of roses. The room is different, white marble floor veined with gold and amethyst, covered with purple rugs. Braziers and huge open windows looking out on a pillared walkway, beyond that vistas down to a lavender sea. It’s the mistress’ bismek setting. A young man is reading a letter on the walkway, a girl stands behind him, her face is tear-stained.

  Interactive fantasies. The characters are generated from lists of traits, they’re projections controlled by whoever is game-mistress of the bismek and fleshed out by the household AI. Everyone else comes over and becomes characters in the setting. There are poisonings and love affairs. The mistress’ setting is in ancient times and seems to be quite popular. Some of her friends have two or three identities in the game.

  She usually turns it off when she goes out. The little cleaning machine stops. It can read the difference between reality and the projection, but she has ordered it never to enter the projection because she says the sight of the thing snuffling through walls damages her sense of the alternate reality. I reach behind the screen and turn the projection off so that I can clean. The scene disappears, even the usual projections, and there is the mistress’ rooms and their bare walls. “Go ahead,” I tell the machine and start for the mistress’ rooms to pick up things for the laundry.

  To my horror, the mistress steps out of her bedroom. Her ha
ir is loose and long and disheveled, and she is dressed in a day robe, obviously not intending to go out. She sees me in the hall and stops in astonishment. Then her face darkens, her beautiful, heavy eyebrows folding toward her nose, and I instinctively start to back up. “Oh, Mistress,” I say, “I am sorry, I didn’t know you were in, I’m sorry, let me get the cleaning machine and leave, I’ll just be out of here in a moment, I thought you had gone out to play the Tiles, I should have checked with Fadina, it is my fault, mistress—”

  “Did you turn them off?” she demands. “You stupid girl, did you turn Zarin and Nisea off?”

  I nod mutely.

  “Oh Holy One,” she says. “Ugly, incompetent girl! Are you completely lacking in sense? Did you think they would be there and I wouldn’t be here? It’s difficult enough to prepare without interference!”

  “I’ll turn it back on,” I say.

  “Don’t touch anything!” she shrieks. “FADINA!” The mistress has a very popular bismek and Fadina is always explaining to me how difficult it is for the mistress to think up new and interesting scenarios for her friends’ participation.

  I keep backing up, hissing at the cleaning machine, while the mistress follows me down the hall shrieking “FADINA!” and because I am watching the mistress I back into Fadina coming in the door.

  “Didn’t you tell Diyet that I’d be in this afternoon?” the mistress says.

  “Of course,” Fadina says.

  I am aghast. “You did not!” I say.

  “I did, too,” Fadina says. “You were at the access. I distinctly told you and you said you would clean later.”

  I start to defend myself and the mistress slaps me in the face. “Enough of you, girl,” she says. And then the mistress makes me stand there and berates me, reaching out now and then to grab my hair and yank it painfully, because of course she believes Fadina when the girl is clearly lying to avoid punishment. I cannot believe that Fadina has done this to me; she is in terror of offending the mistress, but she has always been a good girl, and I am innocent. My cheek stings, and my head aches from having my hair yanked, but, worse, I am so angry and so, so humiliated.