Asimov's SF, April-May 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

“With a certainty; only I think that the aliens are better at carrying the white man's burden than ever the white men were.” She says this with an air of wry detachment; her skin isn't as dark as mine, but it's far from lily-white.

  “'To be colonized is to be removed from history.'”

  “Walter Rodney,” she says, nodding acknowledgement. “But whose history? To the galaxy at large, we're just now joining the course of history. What we did before now is the rough mythology of a subaltern species.”

  Again, a colonial apologist's argument.

  Uncomforted, I thank her, and leave to seek my bed.

  * * * *

  On December thirty-first, a partial lunar eclipse will be visible throughout the Eastern Hemisphere and most of Europe. Throughout the month of December, I will loot the Earth.

  On Christmas night at 03:27 UT, I'll be awakened by a persistent beeping from my PDA.

  When I cup my hand over the screen to keep the light from waking Julian, I see that I am summoned to 7883 immediately and at high priority.

  I think, with the clear profundity of those awakened suddenly, that there is no time when one feels more human than when one is summoned to aid another in the middle of the night. I stumble from bed, get dressed, and trace a path through the sleep-silent human quadrant of 3491. At the shuttle launch it is borne upon me with distinct surreality that this is my life.

  A Lurian waits at the Consulate's shuttle to pilot me across the void to 7883. I think for the first time in months of Gregory Lin and his teleportation beam postulate; I've still seen no evidence that the Syndicate possesses such technology. We are shuttled everywhere. I do not once think of how alien the Lurian appears, and the Lurian's smile seems natural, not predatory.

  As if I plucked the thought of Gregory Lin from the collective unconscious, I find that he is the reason for the summons to 7883.

  A doctor tells me that Gregory has had an extreme xenophobic reaction in conjunction with a suicide attempt. “He asked for you. He says he knew you before he joined the Syndicate.”

  “He was my student.”

  Gregory sits reading a book in a hospital bed, not at all the portrait of a suicidal xenophobe. He smiles and tells me calmly about his life since boarding 7883. He misses home, family, the ex-girlfriend he never had a chance to make up with ... He tells me how much he fears the Lurians, and how the Txike are even worse, and how much he hates the mission of the Syndicate. He tells me that he cannot see the point of all the sacrifices demanded of humanity, from the colony ships being sent from Earth to planets unknown, to the humans who idiotically donated themselves to the Syndicate for medical experimentation, to my own mission of stripping the Earth of its great treasures.

  Gregory rambles until he flails. The doctors ask me to step away for a moment while they sedate him. I ask them, “Is he going to recover?”

  “With the kind of break he's had ... well, there's no place on Earth where he can go and avoid thinking about the aliens, and that's what he needs. But their presence permeates every facet of life now.” The doctor shakes his head, saying in a burst of amazement, “They're disassembling every army on the planet, did you hear?”

  I nod.

  In a lower voice, the doctor says, “There's talk on Earth of setting up refuges where humans can go, where no news or talk of aliens is allowed.”

  “Asylums? Or reservations.”

  “In effect.” The doctor looks as troubled as I feel. “That's where I'd like to send him, but they're only available for the extremely wealthy.”

  “Is there anything I can do, here and now?”

  “Just sit with him. Let him know you support him.”

  So I do. I sit beside Gregory Lin's bed, and hold his hand.

  Gregory sleeps at last, and I slip my fingers from his, intending to go find coffee for the sustenance of my vigil. His eyes flutter open. His voice is sad. “How, Professor Naidu? How can you do it?”

  I look upon him, this frail sample of my species, broken by contact with the void and its creatures. I don't know if I can tell him how much comfort I take in the thought of a day, thirty-three hundred years in the future, when humanity's art will return to Earth, when the world will receive back monuments and treasures that would surely have been destroyed in the intervening time.

  I bend to kiss his temple and to whisper in his ear a secret that I know. “Not all that is sacrificed is lost.”

  And I go for the coffee I promised myself, and return for the vigil I promised to him.

  He turns tear-shining eyes upon me at my return. “Not all that is lost is sacrificed, Professor. Some things are stolen.”

  “You were no more stolen than I, Gregory. We led ourselves down this path.” It's not the right thing to say, of course; I never was much good at that. He turns his face away from me, but still I sit beside him, hoping that my presence helps where my words have failed.

  When the day turns, I will return to Earth, return to the sacrifices I must make there. For my own sake, I will not think about Gregory, or think too long on the sacrifices we will make to our conquerors from the stars.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Merrie Haskell

  * * * *

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  * * *

  Poetry: ROBO-CAT(R)

  by Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel

  No messy hairballs with Robo-Cat(R)

  Pet is pre-programmed and pre-trained, but be forewarned:

  Though great to have around the house, Robo-Cat(R)

  Is extremely playful; be sure to secure your computer mouses

  —

  This is one high-maintenance mechanical pet

  Picking mouse gears from its teeth

  And constant trips to Circuit City can't be fun—

  Robo-Cat(R) is not a pet for the emotionally unstable

  —

  Consider the advertising: Amazingly life-like behavior!

  New Quantum Hologram computational techniques

  Mimic the mapped fractals and flow patterns

  Of neurons firing in a feline brain;

  With special scent-recognition programs, Robo-Cat(R)

  Responds to the faintest hint of catnip

  —

  At no additional charge, Robo-Cat(R) comes complete

  With a framed pedigree certificate;

  And no more need to “let the cat out” late at night

  Your mechanical pet does not defecate.

  But let it out of the house if you want to; Robo-Cat(R) won't rust

  —

  Other Robo-Cat(R) products you will want to order immediately:

  Decorative cat box with festively colorful kitty litter

  (For ornamental purposes only; not recommended for living pets)

  Cat bed fully wired for remote Internet access

  Sturdy Mouse Cage, with metal bars and cat-proof lock

  Protect your computer mouse from Robo-Cat(R) (strongly recommended)

  —

  Lunar residents must pay full shipping and handling fees

  Offer not available to Jovian moon mining-station conscripts

  Void where prohibited; Robo-Cat(R) Inc. assumes no liability

  For damage to household furnishings or computer accessories

  Note: Robo-Cat(R) and Robo-Parakeet(R) are NOT compatible purchases

  —

  —Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel<
br />
  Copyright (c) 2008 Kendall Evans and David C. Kopaska-Merkel

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  * * *

  Short Story: AN ART, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE

  by Nick Wolven

  Nick Wolven attended the 2007 Clarion workshop in San Diego. He lives in New York City, where he works in the library at Barnard College. In his first professional sale, the digital future turns every aspect of life and death into...

  An Art, Like Everything Else

  Dominic appeared again on Tuesday night. It was like the other times. Tim woke to distant muttering and the sound of slamming drawers. The hall light was on and a stripe of yellow light sliced the bed. He threw back the covers and lay still for a long time, trying not to hear a thing, trying not to know what was happening. Then he got up and went down the hall.

  The living room was a mess. The drawers of the ebony desk jutted open, spilling papers and wires. The file cabinet in the corner had been disemboweled, and multicolored folders lay strewn on the carpet. On the glass-topped coffee table, diverse media stood in awkward piles, colored jewel cases mingled with disks and envelopes, open notebooks biting reels of magnetic tape. Dominic sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees, his chin propped on his hands.

  “What time is it?” he said.

  Tim looked at the dark windows, said what he always said. “Time for sleep.”

  “You know, I just don't understand it.” Dominic spread his hands above the mess. “I know I saw it recently. I know we have it somewhere. A book, leather cover, oxblood, like a photo album. I can remember holding it in my hands. I can smell the binding, the paper. But I can't, for the life of me, remember where I put it.” He glanced at Tim over his shoulder. “I've looked everywhere. It's gone.”

  Tim stood on the far side of the room, holding the back of a chair.

  “And it's not just that.” Dominic shook his head. “The plans, the forms: I can't find those, either. And when I try to sort things out, there's just this empty space. A void in my head. I try to think of yesterday, and I can't come up with a thing.” He looked at the gray carpet, the modernist furniture, the bare white walls of Tim's house. “I don't even remember this place, this room.”

  Tim squeezed the back of the chair. “It's all right. We don't need the book. We don't need to worry about those forms anymore.”

  “But I want the book.” Dominic struck his knee. “I want ... I want to know what I'm leaving.” He rubbed his legs, trying ineffectually to smoothe the folds in his khakis, the sofa's leather upholstery creaking as he shifted his weight. “And we have them, I know we do. The recordings from France. The one of that sunset over the volcanoes. The time we went to Texas and saw the Smoking Mirror dance. I remember looking through them, I can still see it perfectly. Those colored feathers, the Tres Leches in little bowls. I can see you standing under the acacia trees, stamping your foot to the beat.”

  “And that's good,” said Tim, trying to sound calm. “You remember it, see? Isn't that good enough? I don't think we need those recordings anymore.”

  “But that's not how it was supposed to be.” Dominic rose and came around the sofa. As always, it was striking to Tim how physical he was, how substantive. His feet depressed the carpet and rustled papers on the floor. His bulk and motion sent currents through the air. It was strange how little you noticed these things as a matter of course, the vibrations of air and the response of a carpet, the subliminal indications of a body filling space. They played upon your skin and ears like music, like a catchy tune humming in the back rooms of the mind.

  And then of course there was the touch itself, skin on skin, Dominic's palm on the back of his neck. Every hair on his head was alert to it, and his chest seemed to empty suddenly, as though a spell had sent his heart to another, stranger dimension. He felt himself give in as Dominic's T-shirt pressed his cheek—give in, and begin to believe.

  “We were going to run our sleighing sim,” Dominic said into Tim's hair. “Take that road up into the mountains, to the lodge. Make hot chocolate with Bailey's, make a fire. Use those pine cones that paint little pictures as they burn. Then turn on the snowfall, sit on the couch—just watch the world disappear. And we were going to take out that big leather album, go through it: all our recordings, all the best moments we ever had.” His chest began to shake against Tim's cheek. “I thought it would help me, you know? To have that ending.”

  Tim put his arms around Dominic's body, amazed by the warmth, the comfort, the weight. “It did,” he said. Then more softly, “I thought it did.”

  Tim had chosen to be fairly tall, a shade above six feet, with a quick-growing beard and a face just beginning to weather. But he always felt like a boy against Dominic's big chest. He nuzzled the T-shirt, stroked the broad back, felt Dominic's beard catch at his hair.

  “I'm so confused,” Dominic sighed.

  “I'm sorry,” said Tim, and narrowed his eyes.

  The room shook, slid. The desk collapsed, the sofa receded. The windows expanded, opening on new scenes. Tim packed up the room like a set of clothes, slipped it into a folder under the world. He bit his lip, concentrating. The scene became a beach. Their feet sank into coral sand; sun stung their cheeks.

  “What was that for?” Dominic said.

  Tim shook his head. He searched memories, files, scenes. He changed the beach to New York, and New York to taiga forest. He changed the forest to a bungalow on the coast of Nauru.

  “What are you doing?” Dominic said. “It's late. Honey? Why are you changing the sim like this?”

  Tim didn't answer. It was hard enough to switch sims while he was groggy from sleep; it was even harder when Dominic's deep voice stroked his mind, drawing his thoughts down from the surface of things. He forced himself to be acute, intellectual, to sort the links and directories in his mind.

  “Is something wrong?” Dominic pushed away, stroking Tim's cheek with his fingertips. “You all right?”

  The world shuffled madly: a patio, Greek ruins. A garden of heliconias, air plants, bromeliads. Dominic towered before the scenes, an eternal pillar, lips pursed in perplexity. Tim turned away. There was always some moment...

  It happened. He felt a lurch. Some alien hand seemed to turn a screw in his brain. He felt his consciousness tugged sideways, and the lodge came into being. He heard the crackle of a fire and inhaled the spice of smoke. He opened his eyes fully on the pine-paneled scene. There was the big sandstone fireplace, the coffee table made of a single redwood slab. Hot chocolate simmered in a red pot on a stove. The walls were hung with oil paintings of cedars and glittering streams. And there was the feather-stuffed couch where he and Dominic had first embraced, tasting cider on each other's lips, first truly fallen in love.

  Dominic backed into the scene. He turned in a slow circle, put his hands on the couch, wearing the vague expression of a child in a strange person's house. “Are we here already?” He frowned. A patchwork quilt lay on the back of the couch, and he fingered the corner of it as though examining a plant. “How did we get here?”

  Tim cleared his throat. “Don't you remember, hon?”

  “Did we take the sleigh? We must have taken the sleigh.” Dominic wandered around the couch, sat. “I really don't remember. I don't remember anything.” His eye fell on the coffee table. “Oh—but here's our book!” He took the album into his lap, stroked the oxblood cover. “Are we doing this already? Is it already time?”

  “It's time,” Tim said. And he blinked away the scene.

  It was jarring, sickening, ending a sim so fast. One moment the firelight was flickering around him, Dominic was watching him with uncertain eyes. Then the scene became mud, an inchoate space. He swam through mental static, through pieces of existence. And he found his way, lurching like a diver low on air, to the mess in his living room, to his empty house.

  He knelt among the scattered papers, remembering to breathe. He pressed the carpet with his hands and concentrated on the realness of things, the physica
lity, the way the tufted fibers gave beneath his weight. Slowly, he raised his head and scanned the room, confirming that he was alone.

  * * * *

  “He came again. Last night.”

  Tim spoke before he sat. He stood in the center of the Executor's office, casting his gaze abstractedly over the wainscoted walls, the oak desk, the burgundy armchairs with their bloated cushions. The Executor's office always made him uncomfortable. It aspired to an awkward balance of refinement and informality. There were massive walnut bookcases around the room, but the low-pile carpet had a colorful pattern and the framed posters on the walls touted slogans of studied banality. A flower blooms where a tree has died. A mountain grows and dies, but never in a day.A tree only falls if someone chooses to listen. “I tried to focus. I changed the scene over and over. But he was so ... present. He touched my neck.”

  “You have to remember,” the Executor said, “that Dominic is not a ghost. Dominic is as real as you and I. I call him a ghost because it suits our purposes. But the analogy is a fragile one, at best.”

  There were two singular things about the Executor: his size and his clothes. He was a towering man, with a bald oblong head and overlarge hands. He wore black wool suits that seemed a size or three too small. His wrists and ankles jutted from the garments like bones from a piece of meat.

  “We use the metaphors of the former world,” the Executor said, “to describe our own. A ghost is one of those metaphors. It seems to capture the problem you face. But the word comes from a time before The Transition. It assumes a different kind of physical reality. It assumes a reality that we are given, one over which we have little control.”

  “A body,” Tim said. “A corpus. I know.”

  “That's part of it. But we make our own reality. With programs, with patterns, with information. We make our own bodies, too, by controlling that information. Our reality is not a ground, it's a screen. We can project whatever we like. But those projections are still very real.”

  “I know that,” said Tim, sinking into a chair. “But I thought we destroyed the projections. Isn't that what you said?”