Asimov's SF, April-May 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  That old world was gigantic, but mine is small: five hundred houses and a slice of parkland, plus the old, mostly empty roads that cut through our little nation, and the pipes and gas mains eroding away under our feet. As an SG, we take care of ourselves. We have laws, and we have conventions and routes that feuding parties can use, if they can't answer their troubles privately. We have a good school for the few kids getting born these days. We even have a system for helping people suffering through a stretch of lousy luck. Which is why nobody remembers the last time anybody in our little nation had to go hungry or feel cold.

  But that doesn't mean we can quit worrying about bad times.

  While we sat on Ivan's front steps, I gave Gus one-half of a freshly cultured facsimile-orange, and as we sucked on the sweet juice, we discussed the latest news from places that seemed as distant as the far side of the moon.

  Ivan's house was the oldest and least impressive on the block—a shabby ranch-style home wearing asphalt roof tiles and aluminum siding. What interested me about his property was the lot itself, double-sized and most of it hidden from the street. The backyard was long and sunny, and I'd walked its green grass enough times to feel sure that the ground was rich, uncontaminated by any careless excavations over the past century. My ground is the opposite: fill-earth clay packed down by machines and chronic abuse. And even though our facsimile foods are nutritious and halfway tasty, everybody enjoys the real tomatoes and squash and raspberries that we grow every summer.

  I mentioned the long yard to Gus, and not for the first time.

  “It would be nice,” he agreed, stuffing the orange rind into the pocket where he always kept his compostables. “We could build a community garden, maybe. It'd help people keep busy and happy.”

  People were already happy. This would just add to our reasons.

  “I hear a truck,” he said, tipping his head now.

  A low, powerful rumble was approaching. We were a couple of blocks from the main arterial, but without traffic, sounds carried.

  I stood. “Good luck, Gus.”

  “Ivan,” he corrected.

  “Ivan. Yeah.”

  My ground was too wet to work, but that's what I was pretending to do when the white truck drove past. I had a shovel in my hand, eyes staring at a lump of clayish mud. If the driver looked at me, I didn't see it.

  This time, the deliveryman knew exactly where he was going.

  I didn't look up until I heard the two men talking. At a distance, words didn't carry. But I could tell one of them was nervous and the other was confident. One of them was a long way from home, while the other looked as if he belonged nowhere else in the world but lounging on that front porch.

  The driver must have asked for identification, leading Gus to give some story about not having any. Who needs a driver's license in a world where people rarely travel? The deliveryman probably heard that excuse every day, but there were rules: he couldn't just give what he had to anybody, could he?

  Then I made out the loud, certain words, “Well, I am Ivan Penderlick. Just ask anybody.”

  I stood there, waiting to be asked. My plan was to say, “Oh, this is Ivan What's-His-Name? I don't talk to the guy much, you see. I just knew him as The Professor.”

  But the deliveryman didn't want to bother with witnesses. He probably had a sense for when locals didn't approve of the old government. Which was another hazard in his daily duties, I would think.

  All he wanted was a little reassurance.

  Gus nodded, pretending to understand. Then he opened the front door that we had jimmied just ten minutes ago. Reaching inside, he pulled out a photograph of himself and his own daughter, and instantly he began spinning a convincing story that might or might not match any sketchy biography that the driver was carrying with him.

  “Good enough,” was the verdict.

  The driver vanished inside his truck, then returned with a dark wooden box just big enough and just heavy enough to require both arms to carry it.

  At first, Gus refused to accept the delivery.

  I watched him demanding identification before he signed for anything. How else would he know this was on the up and up? His complaining won a hard stare, but then several documents were shown, and with no small amount of relief, the two men parted, each thrilled by the prospect of never seeing the other again.

  Burning booze, the truck left for its next delivery somewhere in the wilderness that used to be the United States.

  Gus set the box on the front steps, using a screwdriver to pry up a few big staples.

  I walked toward him. Part of me expected an explosion, though I can't tell you why. Mostly I was hoping for something with value, something that could offer an ambitious man some leverage. But there was no way I would have expected the hunk of machinery Gus found wrapped inside a sleeve of aerogel, or the simple note stuck under the lid:

  “Ivan:

  “In a better world, this would be where it belongs.”

  I stared at the device, not sure what to think.

  “Know what you're seeing?” my friend asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “What?”

  “A starship,” the older man remarked. Then he sat on the stairs, drooping as if weak. “Who would have believed it? Huh?”

  * * * *

  What we had in our hands was a model, I told myself. A mock-up. Something slapped together in an old-style machine shop, using materials that might look and feel genuine but was built for no other purpose than to convince visiting senators and the captains of industry that such wonders were possible if only they would throw so-many billions toward this glorious, astonishing future.

  “It isn't real,” I said.

  Gus made soft, doubting sounds.

  “Somebody found it on a shelf somewhere.” I was piecing together a believable story. “Somebody who remembers Ivan and thought the old man would appreciate the gift.”

  “Except,” said Gus.

  “Except what?”

  He handed the starship to me and closed the empty box, and after running a mechanic's thick hand along one edge, he mentioned, “This isn't just a run-of-the-mill packing crate.”

  It was a walnut box. A nice box, sure.

  Then he turned it ninety degrees, revealing a small brass plaque that identified the contents as being Number 18 in an initial culture of 63.

  “That's exactly how many starships they made,” he told me.

  The number was familiar. But I had to ask, “Why sixty-three?”

  “Our twenty-one closest star systems were targeted,” he explained. “The railgun was supposed to launch three of these wonders at each of them.”

  The ball in my hands was black and slick, a little bigger than a basketball and heavier than seemed natural. When I was a kid, I'd gone bowling once or twice. This ball was heavier than those. There were a lot of tiny holes and a couple of large pits, and I thought I could see where fins and limbs might pop out or unfold. Of course the starship was a model. Anything else was too incredible. But just the idea that it might be real made me hold it carefully, but away from my body, away from my groin.

  “It won't be radioactive,” Gus said. “They never bothered fueling things. I'm practically sure of it.”

  “If you say so.” I handed it back to him.

  But he didn't hug the ball either, I noticed.

  “So,” I said. “Do you know where the daughter lives?”

  Gus didn't seem to hear me.

  “Even if this is a model,” I mentioned, “Ivan's going to be thrilled to get it.”

  Which could earn me some goodwill points in the process.

  “I know,” said Gus.

  “Where the daughter lives?”

  “That too. But I just figured how to see if this is real or not.” He was holding the mystery with both hands, and after showing me a little smile—the kind of grin a wicked boy uses with his best buddy—Gus gave a grunt and flung our treasure straight ahead. I wasn't ready. Stunned, I watched it
climb in a high arc before dropping to the sidewalk, delivering a terrific blow that I heard and felt, leaving the gray concrete chipped and the starship rolling with a certain majesty over the curb and out into the street.

  I ran our treasure down, ready to be angry.

  But except for a little dust to wipe away, the starship hadn't noticed any of the abuse.

  “Is that enough proof ?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Unless you've got a sophisticated materials lab tucked in your basement somewhere.”

  “I'll check.”

  He laughed.

  Then he said, “The daughter lives in the old Highpark area. I got the original address written down somewhere.”

  And I had a stack of maps pulled out of old phonebooks. Give us enough time, and we'd probably be able to find the right front door.

  I made noise about getting one of the bikes and my big trailer.

  Gus set the starship back into its aerogel sleeve and then into the box. Then he closed the lid and shook his head, remarking to me, “With a supremely important occasion like this, I believe we should drive.”

  * * * *

  Our SG has some community cars and small trucks, while a few households have their own little putt-putts. Even if you don't drive much, it's halfway easy to keep your vehicle working, what with a factory in every garage and experts like Gus to putter in the gaps. My friend had a certain client in mind, and while I found my best map of the old city and packed a lunch for each of us, he wandered around the corner to ask one very big favor. By the time I stepped outside again, he was waiting at the end of the drive, sitting behind the joystick of a 2021 Ferrari. That was Mr. Bleacon's baby, manufactured in his own garage by nanologicals steered along by some semi-official schematics, fed nothing but pot metals and stolen pipes and a lot of plastic trash left over from the last century.

  “If we're going to ride with a starship,” Gus pointed out, “we should have a halfway appropriate vehicle.”

  We weren't going to get twenty miles to the gallon of alcohol, but just the power of that machine made this into a wondrous adventure.

  With our prize stowed in the tiny trunk, I asked, “So what if Number 18 is genuine?”

  Gus pushed the joystick forward, and in an instant, we were sprinting out into the wide, empty street.

  “You hear me?” I asked.

  “Most of the time.”

  I waited.

  “I was expecting that question,” he admitted.

  “Glad to be predictable.”

  The first big intersection was marked with Stop signs. But even at a distance, it was easy to see that nobody was coming. Gus accelerated and blew through, but then as soon as we rolled out of our SG, he throttled back to what was probably a quick-but-legal speed.

  “So what if—?” I started asking again.

  “You think we should beg for more? More than just ground for our crops?”

  “Maybe. If you think about how much money went to making sixty-three of these machines.”

  “Don't forget the railgun,” Gus mentioned. “Before the project ended, they had most of the pieces in orbit, along with enough solar panels to light up half of the United States.”

  You don't hear those two words much anymore.

  United States.

  “Do you know how this probe would have worked?” he asked me.

  I was watching houses slipping past, and then all at once there was nothing but empty businesses. A strip mall. A couple of abandoned service stations. And then another strip mall, this one with a couple of stores that might have been occupied. A hair cutting place, and some kind of pet store. Two little traces of commerce tucked into the new world order. I didn't often come this way when I biked. There were prettier, easier routes. But I could see where some people would pay for a good barber. As for pets: cats were running free everywhere, but not many dogs or hamsters. Or parakeets either. So until we can grow critters like them in our garages and basements, shops like that would survive.

  “The railgun would have fired our probe like a cannon ball,” I answered.

  “Which is one reason why it has to be tough,” Gus explained. “That shell is almost unbreakable, and the guts too. Because of the crushing gee-forces.”

  I had known Gus for years, but he was revealing interests that I had never suspected.

  “How long would it have taken?” I asked, testing him.

  “To reach the target star? A few centuries.”

  What a crazy, crazy project. That's what I thought. But I was careful not to be too honest.

  “Three probes to each star system, each one talking to each other two, and occasionally shouting back to us.” He scratched his chin, adding, “They would have saved most of their energy for those few days when they'd fly past their targets.”

  “Fly past? You mean they weren't going into orbit or anything?”

  “Too much momentum. No engines to slow them down.” Gus paused for a moment, and then asked, “Do I turn here?”

  “Left. I think.”

  The Ferrari changed its momentum without complaint.

  I had to say, “It seems a huge waste.”

  “What?”

  “Throwing half a trillion dollars or whatever it was at the stars, and getting nothing out of it but a quick look-see.”

  With a hard voice, he said, “You're young.”

  I don't feel that young anymore. But I asked, “So what?”

  “You don't remember how things were.” Gus shrugged and gave a big sigh before adding, “The probe couldn't go into orbit. But do you know what's inside that black ball?”

  I said, “No.”

  I looked down at the map and said, “Right. Turn here, right.”

  We were cruising up a fresh street. Some of the houses were abandoned. No, most of them were. Now I remembered another reason why I never came this way on my bike. Political troubles in a couple of SGs had gotten out of hand. In the end, the Emergency Council dispatched police to mash down the troubles, teaching all the parties to act nice.

  “What's inside the black ball?” I asked, prompting him.

  “The original nanochines,” he told me.

  Which I halfway remembered, maybe.

  “Tiny bits of diamond dust filled with devices and knowledge.” He came to another intersection. “Straight?”

  “Looks like.” I had the old address circled on the yellowed map.

  “Anyway,” said Gus, “those bits of dust would have been squirted free long before the star was reached. They had tiny, tiny parachutes that would have opened. Light sails, really. The sunlight would have killed their velocity down to where they would start to drift. Each probe carried a few thousand of those amazing little devices. And if one or two landed on a useful asteroid, they would have come awake and started eating sunlight for energy, feed on rock and divide themselves a million million times. And eventually we would have a large loud automated base permanently on station, screaming back at us.”

  “In a few centuries’ time,” I said.

  He nodded. “As good as our shops are? As much crap as we can make from nothing but trash and orange peels? The marvels sleeping in that pregnant machine make our tools look like stone knives and flintlock pistols.”

  Which is when I pointed out, “So maybe this starship thing is worth a whole lot.”

  Gus slowed the car and then looked over at me.

  “I'm just mentioning the obvious,” I said.

  And for the first and only time, Gus told me, “I like you, Josh. I do. But that doesn't mean I have illusions when it comes to your nature. Or infinite patience with your scheming, either. Understood?”

  I gave a nod.

  Then he shoved the joystick forward, pressing me hard into the rich fake leather of the seat.

  * * * *

  It was easy to see why Old Ivan abandoned his little house to live with his daughter.

  Every building standing just outside her large SG had been torn down, and people wi
th resources and a lot to lose had built themselves a wall with the rubble—a tall thick castle-worthy wall made from the scavenged bricks and stone, concrete blocks and two-by-fours. I'd heard stories about Highpark, but until that moment, I hadn't bothered coming up this way. At least twenty signs warned off the curious and uninvited. There was only one entranceway that we could find, and it was guarded by military-grade robots and a tall titanium gate. We parked outside and approaching on foot, me walking a half-step behind Gus. Weapons at the ready, the robots studied our faces while searching their databases for any useful clues to our identities and natures. I decided to let my friend do the talking. Quietly, gently, Gus explained that an important package had been delivered to the wrong address, and if possible, would they please inform Ivan Penderlick that his old neighbors had come to pay their respects?

  A call was made on our behalf.

  After what seemed like an hour, the gate unlocked with a sharp thunk, and we were told to leave our vehicle where it was. Only our bodies and the package would be allowed inside the compound.

  There are SGs, and there are SGs.

  No doubt this was the best one I'd ever seen. Every house was big and well-maintained, sitting in the middle of huge lawns that were covered with greenhouses and extra solar panels, towering windmills and enough cell phone antennas to keep every resident connected to the world at the same time.

  The house that we wanted was wearing a richer and blacker and much more efficient brand of solar paneling.

  The greenhouses were top-of-the-line, too.

  Of course I could always build my own greenhouses. But without the power for climate control, the plants would freeze during the cold winter nights, and come summer, when the sun was its best, everything inside the transparent structures would flash-fry.

  Stopping on the front walk, I stared at red tomatoes begging to be picked.

  Carrying the walnut box, Gus reached the front door before me, and he said, “Ma'am,” before turning back to me, saying, “Come on, Josh. We're expected.”