The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 17

by Gardner Dozois

  “And now?” Ash prompted.

  Silence.

  “Where are you – ?”

  “Inside a lecture hall,” Master replied.

  “When?”

  “Eleven months in the past. I am giving a public lecture.” He paused, and then explained, “I make a modest living, speaking to interested parties.”

  “What do you remember about that day’s lecture?”

  “Everything,” Master began to say. But the voice faltered, and with a doubting tone, he said, “A woman?”

  “What woman?”

  “A human woman.”

  “What about her?” Ash pressed.

  “She was attending . . . sitting in a seat to my right . . . ? No, my left. How odd. I usually know where to place every face – ”

  “What was the topic?”

  “Topic?”

  “Of your lecture. The topic.”

  “A general history of the Great Wheel of Smoke – ”

  “The Milky Way,” Ash interrupted.

  “Your name for everyone’s galaxy, yes.” With a weblike hand, the alien reached in front of his own face. “I was sharing a very shallow overview of our shared history, naming the most important species of the last three billion years.” The hand closed on nothing, and retreated. “For many reasons, there have been few genuinely important species. They have been modestly abundant, and some rather wealthy. But I was making the point . . . the critical line of reasoning . . . that since the metal-rich worlds began spawning intelligence, no single species, or related cluster of sentient organisms, have been able to dominate more than a small puff of the Smoke.”

  “Why is that?”

  The simple question unleashed a flood of thoughts, recollections, and abstract ideas, filling the displays with wild flashes of color and elaborate, highly organized shapes.

  “There are many reasons,” Master warned.

  “Name three.”

  “Why? Do you wish to learn?”

  “I want to pass the time pleasantly,” said Ash, studying the data with a blank, almost impassive face. “Three reasons why no species can dominate. Give them to me, in brief.”

  “Distance. Divergence. And divine wisdom.”

  “The distance between stars . . . is that what you mean . . . ?”

  “Naturally,” the historian replied. “Star-flight remains slow and expensive and potentially dangerous. Many species find those reasons compelling enough to remain at home, safe and comfortable, re-engineering the spacious confines of their own solar system.”

  “Divergence?”

  “A single species can evolve in many fashions. New organic forms. Joining with machines. Becoming machines. Sweeping cultural experiments. Even the total obliteration of physical bodies. No species can dominate any portion of space if what it becomes is many, many new and oftentimes competing species.”

  Ash blinked slowly. “What about divine wisdom?”

  “That is the single most important factor,” said Master. “Ruling the heavens is a child’s desire.”

  “True enough.”

  “The galaxy is not a world, or even a hundred thousand worlds. It is too vast and chaotic to embrace, and with maturity comes the wisdom to accept that simple impossibility.”

  “What about the woman?”

  “Which woman?” Master was surprised by his own question, as if another voice had asked it. “That human female. Yes. Frankly, I don’t think she’s important in the smallest way. I don’t even know why I am thinking about her.”

  “Because I’m forcing you to think about her.”

  “Why? Does she interest you?”

  “Not particularly.” Ash looked up abruptly, staring at the oval black eyes. “She asked you a question. Didn’t she?”

  “I remember. Yes.”

  “What question?”

  “She asked about human beings, of course.” With a gentle disdain, the historian warned, “You are a young species. And yes, you have been fortunate. Your brief story is fat with luck as well as fortuitous decisions. The Great Ship, as an example. Large and ancient, and empty, and you happened to be the species that found it and took possession. And now you are interacting with a wealth of older, wiser species, gaining knowledge at a rate rarely if ever experienced in the last three billion years – ”

  “What did she ask you?”

  “Pardon me. Did you just ask a question?”

  “Exactly. What did this woman say?”

  “I think . . . I know . . . she asked. ‘Will humanity be the first species to dominate the Milky Way?’ ”

  “What was the woman’s name?”

  A pause.

  Ash feathered a hundred separate controls.

  “She did not offer any name,” the historian reported.

  “What did she look like?”

  Again, with a puzzled air, the great mind had to admit, “I didn’t notice her appearance, or I am losing my mind.”

  Ash waited for a moment. “What was your reply?”

  “I told her, and the rest of my audience, ‘Milk is a child’s food. If humans had named the galaxy after smoke, they wouldn’t bother with this nonsense of trying to consume the Milky Way.’ ”

  For a long while, Ash said nothing.

  Then, quietly, the historian inquired, “Where is my assistant? Where is Shadow?”

  “Waiting where you told him to wait,” Ash lied. And in the next breath, “Let’s talk about Shadow for a moment. Shall we?”

  “What do you remember . . . now . . . ?”

  “A crunch cake, and sweet water.” Shadow and Ash were standing in a separate, smaller chamber. Opening his mouth, he tasted the cake again. “Then a pudding of succulents and bark from the Gi-Ti tree – ”

  “Now?”

  “Another crunch cake. In a small restaurant beside the Alpha Sea.”

  With a mild amusement, Ash reported. “This is what you remember best. Meals. I can see your dinners stacked up for fifty thousand years.”

  “I enjoy eating,” the alien replied.

  “A good Aaback attitude.”

  Silence.

  And then the alien turned, soft cords dragged along the floor. Perhaps he had felt something – a touch, a sudden chill – or maybe the expression on his face was born from his own thoughts. Either way, he suddenly asked, “How did you learn this work, Ash?”

  “I was taught,” he offered. “And when I was better than my teachers, I learned on my own. Through experiment and hard practice.”

  “Master claims you are very good, if not the best.”

  “I’ll thank him for that assessment. But he is right: No one is better at this game than me.”

  The alien seemed to consider his next words. Then, “He mentioned that you are from a little world. Mars, was it? I remember something . . . something that happened in your youth. The Night of the Dust, was it?”

  “Many things happened back then.”

  “Was it a war?” Shadow pressed. “Master often lectures about human history, and you seem to have a fondness for war.”

  “I’m glad he finds us interesting.”

  “Your species fascinates him.” Shadow tried to move and discovered that he couldn’t. Save for his twin hearts and mouth, every muscle of his body was fused in place. “I don’t quite understand why he feels this interest – ”

  “You attend his lectures, don’t you?”

  “Always.”

  “He makes most of his income from public talks.”

  “Many souls are interested in his words.”

  “Do you recall a lecture from last year?” Ash gave details, and he appeared disappointed when Shadow said:

  “I don’t remember, no.” An Aaback laugh ended with the thought, “There must not have been any food in that lecture hall.”

  “Let’s try something new,” said Ash. “Think back, back as far as possible. Tell me about the very first meal you remember.”

  A long, long pause ended with. “A little c
runch cake. I was a child, and it was my first adult meal.”

  “I used to be an interrogator,” Ash said abruptly.

  The eyes were gray and watchful.

  “During that old war. I interrogated people, and on certain days, I tortured them.” He nodded calmly, adding, “Memory is a real thing, Shadow. It’s a dense little nest made, like everything, from electrons – where the electrons are and where they are not – and you would be appalled, just appalled, by all the ways that something real can be hacked out of the surrounding bullshit.”

  “Quee Lee.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The human woman. Her name was, and is, Quee Lee.” Ash began disconnecting his devices, leaving only the minimal few to keep shepherding the Vozzen’s mind. “It was easy enough to learn her name. A lecture attended by humans, and when I found one woman, she told me about another. Who mentioned another friend who might have gone to listen to you. But while that friend hadn’t heard of you, she mentioned an acquaintance of hers who had a fondness for the past, and her name is Quee Lee. She happened to be there, and she asked the question.”

  Relief filled Master, and with a thrilled voice, he said, “I remember her now, yes. Yes. She asked about human dominance in the galaxy – ”

  “Not quite, no.”

  Suspicion flowered, and curiosity followed. “She didn’t ask that about human dominance?”

  “It was her second question, and strictly speaking, it wasn’t hers.” Ash smiled and nodded, explaining, “The woman sitting next to her asked it. Quee Lee simply repeated the question, since she had won your attention.”

  A brief pause ended with the wary question:

  “What then did the woman ask me?”

  Ash stared at the remaining displays, and with a quiet firm voice said, “I’ve spoken with Quee Lee. At length. She remembers asking you, ‘What was the earliest sentient life to arise in the galaxy?’ ”

  The simple question generated a sophisticated response. An ocean of learning was tapped, and from that enormity a single turquoise thread was pulled free, and offered. Five candidates were named in a rush. Then the historian rapidly and thoroughly described each species, their home worlds, and eventual fates.

  “None survived into the modern age,” he said sadly “Except as rumor and unsubstantiated sightings, the earliest generation of intelligence has died away.”

  Ash nodded, and waited.

  “How could I forget such a very small thing?”

  “Because it is so small,” Ash replied. “The honest, sad truth is that your age is showing. I’m an old man for my species, but that’s nothing compared to you. The Vozzen journeyed out among the stars during my Permian. You have an enormous and dense and extraordinarily quick mind. But it is a mind. No matter how vast and how adept, it suffers from what is called bounded rationality. You don’t know everything, no matter how much you wish otherwise. You’re living in an enriched environment, full of opportunities to learn. And as long as you wish to understand new wonders, you’re going to have to allow, on occasion, little pieces of your past to fade away.”

  “But why did such a trivial matter bother me so?” asked Master.

  And then in the next instant, he answered his own question. “Because it was trivial, and lost. Is that why? I’m not accustomed to forgetting. The sensation is novel . . . it preyed upon my equilibrium . . . and wore a wound in my mind . . . !”

  “Exactly, exactly,” lied Ash. “Exactly, and exactly.”

  After giving him fair warning, Ash left the historian. “The final probes still need to disengage themselves,” he explained. Then with a careful tone, he asked, “Should I bring your assistant to you? Would you like to see him now?”

  “Please.”

  “Very well.” Ash pretended to step outside, turning in the darkened hallway, centuries of practice telling him where to step. Then he was inside the secondary chamber, using a deceptively casual voice, mentioning to Shadow, “By the way, I think I know what you are.”

  “What I am?”

  With a sudden fierceness, Ash asked, “Did you really believe you could fool me?”

  The alien said nothing, and by every physical means, he acted puzzled but unworried.

  Ash knew better.

  “Your body is mostly Aaback, but there’s something else. If I hadn’t suspected it, I wouldn’t have found it. But what seems to be your brain is an elaborate camouflage for a quiet, nearly invisible neural network.”

  The alien reached with both hands, yanking one of the cables free from his forehead. Then a long tongue reached high, wiping the gray blood from the wound. A halfway choked voice asked, “What did you see inside me?”

  “Dinners.” Ash reported. “Dinners reaching back for billions of years.”

  Silence.

  “Do you belong to one of the first five species?”

  The alien kept yanking cables free, but he was powerless to void the drifters inside his double-mind.

  “No,” said Ash, “I don’t think you’re any of those five.” With a sly smile, he reported, “I can tell. You’re even older than that, aren’t you?”

  The tongue retreated into the mouth. A clear, sorry voice reported, “I am not sure, no.”

  “And that’s why,” said Ash.

  “Why?”

  “The woman asked that question about the old species, and you picked that moment because of it.” He laughed, nodded. “What did you use? How did you cut a few minutes out of a Vozzen’s perfect memory . . . ?”

  “With a small disruptive device – ”

  “I want to see it.”

  “No.”

  Ash kept laughing. “Oh, yes. You are going to show it to me!”

  Silence.

  “Master doesn’t even suspect.” Ash continued. “You were the one who wanted to visit me. You simply gave the Vozzen a good excuse. You heard about me somewhere, and you decided that you wanted me to peer inside his soul, and yours. You were hoping that I would piece together the clues and tell you what I was seeing in your mind – ”

  “What do you see?” Shadow blurted.

  “Basically, two things.” With a thought, he caused every link with Shadow to be severed, and with a professional poise, he explained, “Your soul might be ten or twelve years old. I don’t know how that could be, but I can imagine: In the earliest days of the universe, when the stars were young and metal-poor, life found some other way to evolve. A completely separate route. Structured plasmas, maybe. Maybe. Whatever the route, your ancestors evolved and spread, and then died away as the universe grew cold and empty. Or they adapted, on occasion. They used organic bodies as hosts, maybe.”

  “I am the only survivor,” Shadow muttered. “Whatever the reason, I cannot remember anyone else like me.”

  “You are genuinely ancient,” Ash said, “and I think you’re smarter than you pretend to be. But this ghost mind of yours isn’t that sophisticated. Vozzens are smarter, and most humans, too. But when I was watching you thinking, looking at something simple – when I saw dinners reaching back for a billion years – well, that kind of vista begs for an explanation.”

  Ash took a deep breath, and then said, “Your memory has help. Quantum help. And this isn’t on any scale that I’ve ever seen, or imagined possible. I can pull in the collective conscience of a few trillion Masters from the adjacent realities . . . but with you, I can’t even pick a number that looks sane . . .”

  The alien showed his pink teeth, saying nothing.

  “Are you pleased?” Ash asked.

  “Pleased by what?”

  “You are probably the most common entity in Creation,” said Ash. “I have never seen such a signal as yours. This clear. This deep, and dramatic. You exist, in one form or another, in a fat, astonishing portion of all the possible realities.”

  Shadow said, “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes,” he said with the tiniest nod, “I am pleased.”

  Always, the sun held its
position in the fictional sky. And always, the same wind blew with calm relentlessness. In such a world, it was easy to believe that there was no such monster as time, and the day would never end, and a man with old and exceptionally sad memories could convince himself, on occasion, that there would never be another night.

  Ash was last to leave the shop.

  “Again,” the historian called out, “thank you for your considerable help.”

  “Thank you for your generous gift.” Ash found another cup of tea waiting for him, and he sipped down a full mouthful, watching as Shadow untethered the floating pack. “Where next?”

  “I have more lectures to give,” Master replied.

  “Good.”

  “And I will interview the newest passengers onboard the Ship.”

  “As research?”

  “And as a pleasure, yes.”

  Shadow was placing a tiny object beside one of the bristlecone’s roots. “If you don’t give that disruptor to me,” Ash had threatened, “I’ll explain a few deep secrets to the Vozzen.”

  Of course, Shadow had relented.

  Ash sipped his tea, and quietly said, “Master. What can you tell me about the future?”

  “About what is to come – ?” the alien began.

  “I never met a historian who didn’t have opinions on that subject,” Ash professed. “My species, for instance. What will happen to us in the next ten or twenty million years?”

  Master launched himself into an abbreviated but dense lecture, explaining to his tiny audience what was possible about predicting the future and what was unknowable, and how every bridge between the two was an illusion.

  His audience wasn’t listening.

  In a whisper, Ash said to Shadow, “But why live this way? With him, in this kind of role?”

  In an Aaback fashion, the creature grinned. Then Shadow peered over the edge of the canyon, and speaking to no one in particular, he explained, “He needs me so much. This is why.”

  “As a servant?”

  “And as a friend, and a confidant.” With a very human shrug, he asked Ash, “How could anyone survive even a single day, if they didn’t feel as if they were, in some little great way, needed?”