Jim Baens Universe-Vol 1 Num 6

by Eric Flint

  * * *

  For the next three weeks, the programs worked steadily but with little success. They emitted a few fragments daily, each of which Yukio tested in the evenings. All but two were the now commonplace failures.

  One of the two real memories was a fleeting glimpse of the inside of one of the company's planes, interior lights dim, his father staring at the ceiling and then closing his eyes. The other was a fifteen-second view of a menu in a second-rate Bangkok restaurant. Monkey brains were the special.

  Late Friday night, Yukio sat in his office, as usual both desperate to go home and completely unwilling to do so. On Wednesday, Fujiura had begun sample production of the new RAM modules. Three night-black prototypes, Yukio's showpieces for the board meeting earlier that day, sat still and empty in front of him, their darkness a pleasing contrast to the lighter cedar of his desk. By Monday, manufacturing would have yielded at least a few thousand modules, enough to seed the major Fujiura sites worldwide. Yukio was deciding how to allot the precious modules until more were ready. He played for a while with a simulation, watching stacks grow and shrink on his corporate map as he tried different distributions. Finally, he found one that gave the right mix to the shrinking but still vital American market and the constantly growing Chinese one. He mailed the simulation to Masataro with a brief explanatory note.

  Kensu, still at work, called and asked to meet with him. Yukio agreed.

  Kensu was flushed and obviously excited when he entered the office. "TIOKO has signed the deal, and we've privately placed the entire American shelf offering. It's done. The more I met with the TIOKO people, the more I understood the fit. This is going to be a great deal for us." He bowed deeply. "Thank you for making this happen, and for letting me finish it."

  "Thank you for the effort," Yukio said. He had once seen the TIOKO deal and integration as his newest triumph, a sure way to finally impress his father. Now, the thought of working on the integration, as vital to Fujiura as it was, only wearied him. He looked carefully at Kensu, took in the man's obvious joy in the deal, and thought yet again how much better suited for Yukio's job Kensu was. "I was hoping," he continued, "that you would be willing to add to your duties the task of leading the integration team. I can think of no one better to entrust with such a vital project."

  Kensu sat back, caught off guard for a moment, then recovered and bowed. "It would be my privilege. Thank you."

  "We'll discuss it further on Monday," Yukio said.

  "I'll be prepared," Kensu said, as he left.

  Yukio checked the log of the day's memory reconstruction. Four new ones awaited him, but all proved to be failures. No new memory of consequence had appeared in several days. The only memory of any length was the first, the unpleasant one he had started but never finished. It was time to check the rest of it, to be done with it. He put on the goggles, an image flashed into place, and sound played through the headphones.

  He was in his office, the Matsushima display on the window. Kensu and his younger self sat across from him. Seeing himself was a bit easier this time, though still unsettling. He glanced at the keyboard beneath his fingers, heard the click of the keys, and looked at the center of the office window, where a chart of sales projections replaced Matsushima. The chart sloped downward in the enterprise services sector, Yukio's department. Yukio again relived the shame he had felt at that time, the feeling growing as his gaze—his father's gaze—shifted to the younger Yukio in front of him and his younger self showed the same emotion.

  He heard his father's voice, which he now realized was oddly distorted through the man's head, as his father had heard it himself. He had always found his father's voice powerful, but the version the man himself heard was lighter, higher. "This trend must not continue. You—" Yukio noticed a hesitation he had not caught at the time "—we must do better. Your department is losing money; you must fix it."

  Yukio watched himself look briefly downward and nod. "Yes, sir." He wanted to rip off the goggles, to wipe out the memory—and the past with it—but as the memory played on he forced himself to stay with it.

  The window cleared, Matsushima reappeared, and his father continued, "That is all; you may go." He watched as his younger self and Kensu stood, bowed, and left.

  He was his father, alone. He looked at the window. Matsushima Bay sparkled in the sunlight. He heard his father's breathing, slow and deep, the same sounds Yukio made when he fought for control. He opened a drawer and stared at the framed picture lying inside: Akako and Yukio, both smiling, stood together on Yukio's university graduation day.

  His father's fingers gently touched the photo, and his voice again filled the headphones. "I am so sorry, Yukio. With all your talents, all your gifts, I have never understood why you stayed here. As long as you are here, though, I cannot show you any favoritism, or you will be ruined. I know you will succeed, but I hate making you pay the price for that success. I wish you could find happiness."

  As he put the photo back in the drawer, the memory ended.

  Yukio opened the drawer where the photo had been, then remembered Masataro clearing and packing his father's possessions. He closed the drawer, leaned back, and shut his eyes.

  He had always assumed his father's roughness came naturally, easily. He had not expected the awkwardness, the pain at hurting his son. Yukio could not fault his father for his behavior; he would have done the same thing to the head of a troubled department, had done similar things many times before.

  He walked to the window and touched the image of the Bay. It was the same image his father had watched. He wished his father could have talked to him as he talked to the photo, but his father never had, and now he never would.

  His father had found comfort in the preservation of Matsushima and in the company. Yukio had tried to find comfort in the company, in preserving what his father had built, but he had failed. In that moment he had no clear idea of what he needed, but he knew that whatever it was, it would not come from his father. He would have to keep what good he could remember of the man, and find the rest in himself.

  He looked first at the memory directory and then at the module on his desk. He sent Ishiwa a message to meet with him first thing Monday morning, then headed home.

  * * *

  On the fortieth day after his father's death, Yukio and his mother knelt behind a priest at the temple on Oshima Island. Matsushima Bay lay clear and placid at the edge of their view. Clouds dotted the sky, and light breezes played through the pines, the air rich with the tang of salt and pine. His father's urn rested on the floor in front of the curtain that blocked the sacred view. The priest recited softly, his words barely intelligible.

  Yukio turned his head slightly. The tall, slender grave marker, its polished teak reflecting the sun brightly, sat in the cemetery behind him and to his right. Running down its length was the Buddhist burial name his father had chosen: "He who is beyond the ten thousand things."

  The priest finished and motioned for Yukio to take the urn. Yukio picked up the case that sat at his feet and stepped to the urn. He opened the case and withdrew the memory module that held the only copy of his father's download. He carefully snapped the gleaming black module in half, then dropped the pieces into the urn with his father's ashes. He lightly sounded the gong beside the curtain, bowed deeply, picked up the urn, and backed slowly away.

  Once out of the temple, he walked to the grave marker and set the urn at its base. The priest would bury the urn later.

  Yukio returned to his mother. His father had moved beyond the ten thousand things, beyond the details and tangles of life, the commitments and losses, the pains and joys. Yukio was not yet beyond the ten thousand things that bound him to his father, but he was now making his own path. The Board had agreed to his plan to transition his job to Kensu; in six months he would leave Fujiura. He had no plan beyond that, but he was more at peace than he had been in years.

  His father's spirit was free to take the next step in its journey. So, too, was Yuk
io.

  * * *

  Mark L. Van Name, whom John Ringo has said is "going to be the guy to beat in the race to the top of SFdom," has worked in the high-tech industry for over 30 years and today runs a technology assessment company in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. A former Executive Vice President for Ziff Davis Media and national technology columnist, he's published over a thousand computer-related articles and multiple science fiction stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the Year's Best Science Fiction. His Jon & Lobo story, "Slanted Jack," appeared in the first issue of Jim Baen's Universe, and two other Jon & Lobo stories have appeared in Baen original anthologies. His first Jon & Lobo novel, One Jump Ahead, appears in June, 2007, and the second in the series, Slanted Jack, will appear in 2008. With T.K.F. Weisskopf, he is the editor of the upcoming Baen original anthology, Transhuman, which also contains a new story of his.

  Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again

  Written by Garth Nix

  Illustrated by Jessica Douglas

  "Do you ever wonder about the nature of the world, Mister Fitz?" asked the foremost of the two riders, raising the three-barred visor of his helmet so that his words might more clearly cross the several feet of space that separated him from his companion, who rode not quite at his side.

  "I take it much as it presents itself, for good or ill, Sir Hereward," replied Mister Fitz. He had no need to raise a visor, for he wore a tall lacquered hat rather than a helmet. It had once been taller and had come to a peak, before encountering something sharp in the last battle but two the pair had found themselves engaged in. This did not particularly bother Mister Fitz, for he was not human. He was a wooden puppet given the semblance of life by an ancient sorcery. By dint of propinquity, over many centuries a considerable essence of humanity had been absorbed into his fine-grained body, but attention to his own appearance or indeed vanity of any sort was still not part of his persona.

  Sir Hereward, for the other part, had a good measure of vanity and in fact the raising of the three-barred visor of his helmet almost certainly had more to do with an approaching apple seller of comely appearance than it did with a desire for clear communication to Mister Fitz.

  The duo were riding south on a road that had once been paved and gloried in the name of the Southwest Toll Extension of the Lesser Trunk. But its heyday was long ago, the road being even older than Mister Fitz. Few paved stretches remained, but the tightly compacted understructure still provided a better surface than the rough soil of the fields to either side.

  The political identification of these fallow pastures and the occasional once-coppiced wood they passed was not clear to either Sir Hereward or Mister Fitz, despite several attempts to ascertain said identification from the few travelers they had encountered since leaving the city of Rhool several days before. To all intents and purposes, the land appeared to be both uninhabited and untroubled by soldiery or tax collectors and was thus a void in the sociopolitical map that Hereward held uneasily, and Fitz exactly, in their respective heads.

  A quick exchange with the apple seller provided only a little further information, and also lessened Hereward's hope of some minor flirtation, for her physical beauty was sullied by a surly and depressive manner. In a voice as sullen as a three-day drizzle, the woman told them she was taking the apples to a large house that lay out of sight beyond the nearer overgrown wood. She had come from a town called Lettique or Letiki that was located beyond the lumpy ridge of blackish shale that they could see a mile or so to the south. The apples in question had come from farther south still, and were not in keeping with their carrier, being particularly fine examples of a variety Mister Fitz correctly identified as emerald brights. There was no call for local apples, the young woman reluctantly explained. The fruit and vegetables from the distant oasis of Shûme were always preferred, if they could be obtained. Which, for the right price, they nearly always could be, regardless of season.

  Hereward and Fitz rode in silence for a few minutes after parting company with the apple seller, the young knight looking back not once but twice as if he could not believe that such a vision of loveliness could house such an unfriendly soul. Finding that the young woman did not bother to look back at all, Hereward cleared his throat and, without raising his visor, spoke.

  "It appears we are on the right road, though she spoke of Shumey and not Shome."

  Fitz looked up at the sky, where the sun was beginning to lose its distinct shape and ooze red into the shabby grey clouds that covered the horizon.

  "A minor variation in pronunciation," he said. "Should we stop in Lettique for the night, or ride on?"

  "Stop," said Hereward. "My rear is not polished sandalwood, and it needs soaking in a very hot bath enhanced with several soothing essences . . . ah . . . that was one of your leading questions, wasn't it?"

  "The newspaper in Rhool spoke of an alliance against Shûme," said Mister Fitz carefully, in a manner that confirmed Hereward's suspicion that didactic discourse had already begun. "It is likely that Lettique will be one of the towns arrayed against Shûme. Should the townsfolk discover we ride to Shûme in hope of employment, we might find ourselves wishing for the quiet of the fields in the night, the lack of mattresses, ale and roasted capons there notwithstanding."

  "Bah!" exclaimed Hereward, whose youth and temperament made him tend toward careless optimism. "Why should they suspect us of seeking to sign on with the burghers of Shûme?"

  Mister Fitz's pumpkin-sized papier-mâché head rotated on his spindly neck, and the blobs of blue paint that marked the pupils of his eyes looked up and down, taking in Sir Hereward from toe to head: from his gilt-spurred boots to his gold-chased helmet. In between boots and helm were Hereward's second-best buff coat, the sleeves still embroidered with the complicated silver tracery that proclaimed him as the Master Artillerist of the city of Jeminero. Not that said city was any longer in existence, as for the past three years it had been no more than a mass grave sealed with the rubble of its once-famous walls. Around the coat was a frayed but still quite golden sash, over that a rare and expensive Carnithian leather baldric and belt with two beautifully ornamented (but no less functional for that) wheel-lock pistols thrust through said belt. Hereward's longer-barreled and only slightly less ornamented cavalry pistols were holstered on either side of his saddle horn, his saber with its sharkskin grip and gleaming hilt of gilt brass hung in its scabbard from the rear left quarter of his saddle, and his sighting telescope was secured inside its leather case on the right rear quarter.

  Mister Fitz's mount, of course, carried all the more mundane items required by their travels. All three feet six and a half inches of him (four-foot-three with the hat) was perched upon a yoke across his mount's back that secured the two large panniers that were needed to transport tent and bedding, washing and shaving gear and a large assortment of outdoor kitchen utensils. Not to mention the small but surprisingly expandable sewing desk that contained the tools and devices of Mister Fitz's own peculiar art.

  "Shûme is a city, and rich," said Fitz patiently. "The surrounding settlements are mere towns, both smaller and poorer, who are reportedly planning to go to war against their wealthy neighbor. You are obviously a soldier for hire, and a self-evidently expensive one at that. Therefore, you must be en route to Shûme."

  Hereward did not answer immediately, as was his way, while he worked at overcoming his resentment at being told what to do. He worked at it because Mister Fitz had been telling him what to do since he was four years old and also because he knew that, as usual, Fitz was right. It would be foolish to stop in Lettique.

  "I suppose that they might even attempt to hire us," he said, as they topped the low ridge, shale crunching under their mounts' talons.

  Hereward looked down at a wasted valley of underperforming pastures filled either with sickly-looking crops or passive groups of too-thin cattle. A town—presumably Lettique—lay at the other end of the valley. It was not an impressive ville,
being a collection of perhaps three or four hundred mostly timber and painted-plaster houses within the bounds of a broken-down wall to the west and a dry ravine, that might have once held a river, to the east. An imposing, dozen-spired temple in the middle of the town was the only indication that at some time Lettique had seen more provident days.

  "Do you wish to take employment in a poor town?" asked Mister Fitz. One of his responsibilities was to advise and positively influence Hereward, but he did not make decisions for him.

  "No, I don't think so," replied the knight slowly. "Though it does make me recall my thought . . . the one that was with me before we were interrupted by that dismal apple seller."

  "You asked if I ever wondered at the nature of the world," prompted Fitz.

  "I think what I actually intended to say," said Hereward. "Is 'do you ever wonder why we become involved in events that are rather more than less of importance to rather more than less people?' as in the various significant battles, sieges, and so forth in which we have played no small part. I fully comprehend that in some cases the events have stemmed from the peculiar responsibilities we shoulder, but not in all cases. And that being so, and given my desire for a period of quiet, perhaps I should consider taking service with some poor town."