Asimov's SF, April/May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He inhabited a timeless flow and dream. The flow was part of the Undertower's machine mind, endless surging data, meaningless to him. The dataflow buoyed him but he dwelt mostly in dream, where the others hadn't died. In dream, Sten hadn't brought the alien virus back through the interlock. In dream, Celia touched him and their voices murmured in the close darkness. In dream, his daughter Kayla laughed.

  Occasionally, open sky and light-drenched vistas intruded—non sequiturs. He pushed the vistas aside and clung to the close murmuring dark.

  Then it all stopped.

  Braincore needles, catheters, muscle-stimulating cuffs, esophageal tube, transdermal sensors, retinal pulsers—all withdrew and fell away with a final whir, click, and suspiration.

  He lay stunned in the gel-couch.

  After a few moments of real time, he opened gummy eyelids. A dim amber rectangle created as much gloom as it dispelled. Above the ceiling, an air-handler labored in counterpoint to his rasping breaths. Encircled by dark projectors and withdrawn meldpoints, bereft of the flow and dream, the man groaned in dense torpor. He reached for a meldpoint—and stopped when he saw his hand: wrinkled and puckered, bulging with knuckles, corded with thick blue veins. He held the hand in front of his face, turned it slowly. "God."

  With effort, he sat up. The gel-couch tilted forward, obeying his movement, folding itself into a chair. For a long while that's all the man could accomplish. But eventually he stood, knees grinding painfully, as if spun glass wound through the dry bones; lost in the flow and dream, he had become old.

  * * * *

  His memory was ragged, blown through with holes. But he did recall his first dangerously extended meld. It occurred weeks after the deaths of his family and fellow Monitors and their children. His daughter had survived the longest. But in the end, she had gone like the others, staring uncomprehendingly into a dark the man could not see, her eyes watery blue coins in her fevered face. He incinerated her body, along with the others, and then he went on, alone.

  Far below the Monitor's quarters, Sleepers stacked in the deep lockers waited for the next generation of Monitors to revive them, when the planet became habitable. But now there would be no further generations. And so he rode the flow and dream, and craved it unbearably when he withdrew from it, until, finally, he ceased withdrawing from it at all.

  Except now, when forcibly expelled.

  * * * *

  He hobbled around the living quarters, inventoried the storage bins of comestibles, tested the potable water. He established a routine that at least approximated life, taking food and drink as needed, eliminating his waste, exercising. All this, while the dead feeling cloaked him. The dead feeling had been waiting for him while he dreamed. As his strength and ability to concentrate slowly returned, he attempted to restore the melding apparatus. But it was as if the Undertower, which had been Ship, had lapsed into coma. All but the most vital life-sustaining systems were inactive. Nothing the man attempted succeeded in revitalizing them. Without functioning surface telemetry, he could not monitor progress of the terraforming machines. Without the lift, descending to the deep chambers was too daunting a prospect. Besides, he felt nothing for the legions of sleeping colonists. All he wanted was the flow and dream and the cessation of his thoughts—all he wanted was to escape the dead feeling of grief.

  He wondered, Would real death be like an eternal meld, or like the dark cell of his approximate life? Rocked back in the useless gel-couch, he stared at the dim light panel above him and wondered how long he could wait to find out.

  * * * *

  He was tearing open a packet containing a protein bar when he heard echoing footfalls ascending from below. He dropped the packet and turned toward the door to the stairwell. Someone was coming up—coming up from the deep.

  But there were only Sleepers down there.

  He approached the door, hesitated, trembled his fingers over the burnished metal, then gripped the latching mechanism, cranked it over, and wheeled the door aside.

  The slightly fresher air in the vast stairwell breathed into his face. The old man inhaled sharply and coughed. Below him, in amber gloom, a bright bar of light appeared, swept up and fell upon him. He squinted, holding his hand up, palm turned out.

  "We've come for you,” a girl's voice said from behind the too-bright light.

  The old man squinted and moved his head, trying to see her. He cleared his throat. “I'm a Monitor,” he said, in a cracked voice. “Who are you?"

  The girl swung the light off his face. She came up a flight of stairs, feet slapping on metal, and paused again, only one flight below him. “We know you,” she said.

  He regarded her, a girl no more than twelve, hair growing out in short bristles, a backpack strapped to her shoulders. Where were the others, the “we"? “Who—?” he said, groping either for her name or his own, which had been swallowed down one of the holes in his mind—sinks created by extended melding.

  She came the remainder of the way up, taking the last few steps three and four at a time, pumping her legs, knees practically to her chin, fairly leaping up the stairs. This, after ascending from the deep chambers, kilometers below. “We're Almeta,” she said, thrusting out her hand. “And we're going to the surface. Your name is Bale, and you have to come with us."

  Bale. The name was his; he remembered it instantly. He looked at her proffered hand. “The surface—"

  "Yes."

  "But you can't do that."

  "We are doing it.” She grabbed his hand, shook it vigorously. Her skin was hot, damp with sweat. “Come with us,” she said. “You have to. Now."

  He pulled his hand free of hers, suddenly frightened. “You have the virus."

  She stared at him, evaluated him like a diagnostic robot—the way her head moved in little stuttering jerks. “There is no virus,” she said. “You successfully eradicated it decades ago."

  "How could you possibly know that?” It was Bale's turn to evaluate her. She both was and wasn't a child. “What are you?"

  "We must go now."

  "There's no point. The surface is—"

  "The world is habitable."

  "You can't know that. I'm a Monitor and even I don't know it."

  "It's true,” Almeta said.

  "Because you want it to be true doesn't mean that it is."

  "Come,” she said.

  "How are you awake?” Bale reached out and touched her chin, turning her head a little, leaning to see the bio-ports, as if it were possible she wasn't a Sleeper. The ports were there, of course. Some violent scoring blackened her cranial plate. The skin around the plate was shiny with recent scarring. The Sleepers dreamed in a far deeper meld than Bale had achieved, their pods designed to hold them for generations of time, the meld allowing vital dream function to continue even as their bodies remained in stasis. Bale's melding apparatus was not intended for such long-term use; its function was strictly restorative. He had abused the apparatus and paid the price: lost years and addictive longing for the flow and dream.

  "The child was sleeping,” Almeta said, lifting her chin away from his fingers. “Like the others. Ship chose her because of her youth and vitality."

  As an original colonist in stasis, Almeta was easily a hundred years older than Bale. The bristly hair covering her head indicated the days since she had awakened. Absently, Bale touched the needle ports on the top of his own head, picked at the damp crust that continually formed since the needles withdrew. “Ship chose?” he said.

  "You must come with us to the surface, to complete the mission."

  Bale frowned. “Virus or not, you have a fever.” He looked over his shoulder at the open door to his quarters. A piece of him wished he hadn't left them to encounter this strange girl. He had been preparing to end his isolation permanently. “I suppose you better stay with me for now,” he said. As he started to turn away, the girl said, “We will go alone if we have to."

  He paused. “I can't stop you. But you're wasting your time. The interl
ock will only open for a Monitor."

  "It will open.” She started climbing stairs, hitting the next landing before Bale could find his voice again. She moved so fast. In moments she would be gone. He shook off his enervation and shouted, “Wait!” She stopped and looked down at him. “Please wait.” he said. His breathing was ragged with the fear of being left alone. “I must pack food and water. It's still a long way to the hatches. And I can't run up those stairs like you."

  "We will wait for you, Bale."

  * * * *

  Almeta slowed down, but nevertheless set a steady upward pace that Bale could not match. Soon she was half a dozen flights above him, her flashlight flickering distantly in the high gloom of the Undertower.

  Bale halted and leaned against the bulkhead, chest heaving, knees on fire. He sat down and wiped sweat from his eyes.

  "Hey!” Almeta came bounding down the stairs, making a racket of echoes. Bale lifted his head. She reached him in seconds.

  "What are you sitting there for?” she said. Her speech vacillated between a child's loose diction and the elocutions of some . . . other voice.

  "Resting,” Bale said.

  "Oh, okay. We will wait while you rest."

  "Thanks."

  She didn't sit, didn't even stop moving. She paced the landing above him, looking up, like a caged thing under open sky.

  "Why aren't you tired?” Bale said. “Where do you get this energy?"

  "We are new. Young."

  "I know. But—never mind. In any case, I'm not young."

  She interrupted her pacing and lowered her gaze to him. “You're not as old as you behave,” she said.

  "Look at me!"

  "You're seventy-six in Terran years. The average human life span is one hundred and five."

  Bale said, “How do know my age?"

  "We know everything,” Almeta said, voice shifting again. “We are Ship."

  "I don't understand.” Ship had crossed the interstellar gulf. Upon planetfall, after the establishment of the terraformers, Ship had burrowed beneath the surface, to wait as Undertower. A thinking mechanism, Ship was more than machine, less than being. But Ship was not a human child.

  "Are you sufficiently rested to proceed?” Almeta asked. “We are used to knowing all. When you melded there were no barriers."

  Bale stood up. “Explain."

  "We are Ship. We are the child. We are Undertower."

  "Come down here,” Bale said.

  Almeta resumed pacing. “I don't want to. We're supposed to be going up, not down."

  "Just come down here.” He was talking to the child now.

  Almeta came down, practically falling, skipping more steps than she touched. When she reached him, Bale put his hand on her shoulder to hold her still. He turned his flashlight on her face, which was streaming sweat, and practically glowing with fever. He placed his finger over the large artery in her neck. “My God, your heart—"

  She pushed away from him. “We need to go now."

  He pointed the light at her eyes. The pupils did not contract. He almost dropped the light. “What's happening to you?"

  "Child and Ship are together,” the other voice said. And then the child: “We're mixed up now.” And the other: “Half the Sleepers are deceased. The deep has become a tomb. You did not fulfill your function, Bale. Mission goal should be paramount. The new collective purpose of the Sleepers superseded the mission."

  "What purpose?"

  "To meld forever."

  * * * *

  "You're killing me,” Bale said. He paused after another hour of steady climbing, leaned against the bulkhead, panting, sweat dripping, legs trembling. Almeta had waited for him this time.

  "No, we're saving you,” Almeta said.

  "Thanks."

  "Sarcasm. I get it."

  That was the child. He raised his head, wiped the sweat out of his eyes. He shined his light on Almeta and didn't like what he saw. “You're burning out the girl's body."

  Almeta pushed the light aside. “It can't be helped.” She started to turn to the next flight of stairs. He grabbed her arm.

  "Wait,” he said, “at least eat something."

  The girl, still turned away from him, gazed up the well of stairs. He tugged on her arm. “Sit down. Eat. Now. There's no point in killing yourself.” He put his hands on her shoulders (a somatic memory of his daughter, Kayla, communicated with a buried part of his wounded heart), and pushed her firmly down. At first she resisted. Then she bent her knees and lowered herself until she was sitting on the stair tread.

  "We will die, Bale,” she said. “We have already sacrificed Ship to be together with the child. Only the mission is imperishable."

  "Shut up,” Bale said. He unshouldered his backpack, opened it, and pulled out a couple of protein bars, a pack of salt tablets, and two bottles of water. Almeta watched him with unblinking eyes. He divided the meal and sat beside her. “Eat, drink, and be merry,” he said.

  "I don't understand."

  "Old-World phrase. Never mind. Just get some food in you. Your body has to have fuel to function. You should be able to understand that."

  Almeta lowered her chin and tore into the sealed packet containing the protein bar. She ate the bar mechanically, as if she were chewing cardboard, popped the salt tablets in her mouth, and washed them down with water. Bale drank from his own bottle. The water tasted dusty. Almeta chugged her water then dropped the empty bottle on the landing and stood up. “Let's go,” she said.

  "Slave driver."

  She looked at him.

  "Never mind, never mind.” His legs still felt wobbly. He wanted to delay as long as possible. He made a face at the protein bar and pushed the last bite into his mouth. Really, it did taste like cardboard. “What have you got in here?” he said, giving Almeta's backpack a shake. It felt light.

  "Nothing."

  He slipped his thumbnail along the static seal and opened the top flap. Empty. “The girl wanted it,” Almeta said. “It was a familiar thing."

  A comfort item, Bale thought. Children needed familiar things. “It was a long climb in the dark, wasn't it?” He patted Almeta's shoulder in a tender way.

  She shrugged. “Let's go."

  * * * *

  She was waiting for him when he finally reached the sealed hatches. “They will open for you,” she said. He glanced at the interlock. Long ago, Sten had gone on a recon and unknowingly brought the virus back with him. The sterilizing beams had done nothing. Diagnostics hadn't even detected its presence.

  "They won't open,” Bale said.

  "You inhabited the meld a very long time,” Almeta said. “We sent you the truth of the world in dreams but you ignored them. Now you must complete the mission of human habitation. You don't even know what generation this is."

  "Of course I do."

  "This is third generation."

  "That's impossible."

  "Mission goal,” Almeta said, “is to establish human habitation of the transformed surface. You are the only viable human left on Ship."

  "You said there were others, in stasis."

  "A few remain, but their survival is questionable. You are viable. Mission protocols require human habitation of the transformed surface."

  "One man can't colonize a world."

  "It's time to go out,” Almeta said. “Go out now."

  "I can't. After Sten brought back the virus, I recalibrated the safety filters. The hatches won't open, even for me, as long as the virus exists as a threat in the atmosphere. I told you climbing up here was a waste of time."

  Almeta shook her head. She was starting to wilt. Her breathing had grown shallow. “This is third generation after planetfall. The terraformers long ago scrubbed the atmosphere clean."

  He stared at her. “Without telemetry I can't be sure of that."

  Almeta started to speak, then collapsed. Bale caught her. “Please open the hatches,” she said, and it was the child, pleading. “I want to see the sky, the way it was in
my dream.” Bale eased her down to the floor, cradled her head in his big hand.

  "I'm sorry,” he said.

  "Please—” In a fading voice. Almeta's eyes were drowsy. Bale felt the heat against his hand, just as he had felt it when he cradled his daughter's head on her deathbed: so much heat, burning out the child's brain.

  "For God's sake,” he said, addressing Ship. “Can't you let her go?"

  "The sky . . .” Almeta said.

  Bale carefully let her head down on the floor and stood. His body was aching after the long climb. “It won't work,” he mumbled. Was it that he preferred it not work? Was he that afraid of living? He glanced back at the child, then, angrily, he slapped his hand spread-fingered on the sensor pad. Immediately the pad lit up, the interlock began to grind, and after a brief lag the complicated puzzle arrangement snapped open, slipped aside, unwound, and withdrew. Directly above them the ceiling parted. Wind roared through the hatch. Brilliant daylight drenched them.

  Bale fell back, threw his arms up, nearly blinded.

  Almeta gazed unblinkingly into the light, and Bale knew it was Ship lying incapacitated on the floor.

  The wind was like a crystalline freshet—cold air flushing out the stale, heated atmosphere of the Undertower. Bale shaded his hand over his narrowed, stinging eyes. The sky was pale and pink. Clouds like yellow gauze drifted by.

  "Mission goal,” Ship said, “is to establish human habitation of the transformed surface.” Bale looked down in time to see the girl's eyes close and her body, without moving, subside toward death. His heart clenched in a memory of grief. He knelt beside her and took her hand into his. Her lips moved. He leaned closer. “I want my mother,” Almeta said. The heat of intense fever radiated from her face.

  Something green with featherless wings, like a kind of bat, beat through the open hatches, caught by the inflow of wind. Startled, Bale looked away from the girl. The bat-thing knocked against a metal strut and fell stunned to the floor, wings twitching. When Bale turned back to the girl, she was dead.

  Bale picked up the New-World creature in his cupped hands. With wings folded it was no larger than a starling. Its head was long and narrow, ending in a hooked beak. He could feel it breathing, perhaps too frightened to move. The wind had finally abated, now plucking at Bale's tunic like a fussy companion about to send him on his way. Suddenly the creature hooked its beak into Bale's thumb. His hands sprang apart, and the creature flew away through the open hatch.