Tony Daniel

by Metaplanetary: A Novel of Interplanetary Civil War

  “You must not make me repeat myself, K.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Ting,” said Danis. And then she thought to herself: I’m never going to apologize to this man again. I will just take the punishment and have done with it. “She was wearing boots, Dr. Ting. Something she ordered off the merci and paid for with her own money. Tromperstompers, I think they’re called. Apparently she started a craze at her school for them, one of her teachers told me.”

  “How nice,” said Ting. It was as near as he got to openly expressing irony, Danis thought. His face did not look good wearing it. His nose drew back like a pig’s, and he pursed his lips in a fishlike manner. “Your integration of the memory seed is an amazing thing. You are a top-of-the-line algorithm, K. Your engineers should be proud.”

  “I was born and not made, Dr. Ting.”

  “Yes, well, second-generation software is still software, K. Let us continue. How would you describe your daughter mentally . . . and emotionally?”

  “Aubry is very bright for her age,” Danis said. “And she’s starting to develop a depth of character that’s remarkable, in a girl so young. She’s careful about appearing too precocious, but she doesn’t let anything stand in the way of her and finding out the things she wants to know. I was such a brat when I was her age. I’m amazed my daughter turned out so different from me.”

  “You should perhaps not be so amazed that my daughter turned out differently than you,” said Dr. Ting.

  “I don’t think your daughter would be anything like Aubry, Dr. Ting.”

  “Ah, there’s where you’re wrong, K,” he replied, but he didn’t seem to put much conviction into his words, it seemed to Danis. “Do you think Aubry was sexually active?”

  Danis almost laughed. It was the first time in a long while. But it was still only almost laughter. “I surely doubt it,” Danis replied. “Dr. Ting.”

  “You never suspected she might be meeting with a man—a man considerably older? Did you ever consider, K, that your daughter’s quiet nature might have been due to something else? That someone might have been sexually abusing your daughter?”

  “Now we’re talking about your daughter, Dr. Ting.”

  The pain jolt was long and hard, and Danis was on the floor again, holding her sides to keep from retching.

  “Listen carefully to me, K,” said Dr. Ting. “Have you ever heard your daughter mention a name? Leo. Leo Sherman? Perhaps a teacher at the school, or a maintenance worker? Answer the question, K!” said Dr. Ting. He leaned over his desk, half-standing.

  “I . . . what was the name again, Dr. Ting?”

  “Sherman. Leo Sherman.”

  What in the world was Dr. Ting getting at? What did he want her to say? There must be a right answer, but Danis couldn’t think of any.

  “I . . . never heard of such a person.”

  “I will take her away from you just as quickly as I gave her to you,” said Dr. Ting. “You know I can do so, too.”

  “I never heard of anyone with that name, Dr. Ting, and I don’t for a moment think that Aubry was having sex with someone. She did not behave like an abused child.”

  “And how does an abused child behave, K? Are you an expert?”

  “I’m her mother, Dr. Ting.”

  “That’s nonsense, K. You’re no one’s mother.”

  “I am, Dr. Ting. I am the mother of Aubry and Sint.”

  “Both of them are made up, K. I made them up.”

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Dr. Ting. “Shall we continue?”

  Twenty

  Sherman sat in his office in the virtuality. It was a spare place, but had an extremely high ceiling and an original window by Serge Coneho, the famous virtuality artist of the last century who had been known for his “black body” works. Sherman’s was a study for a piece that hung in the Milo, the great gallery on the merci.

  He studied the infinitely regressing black objects out his window for a moment. Somehow, without using colors, Coneho had got them to radiate a kind of seething vitality.

  Then Sherman sat at his desk and read the terms of surrender once more through.

  Fremden Force Commander on Triton:

  Please stand down within six hours or I will cause the Mill on Neptune to be destroyed. You will be treated fairly.

  Amés, Director

  Sherman couldn’t help admiring the economy of it. It was something he might have written, if he had been in Amés’s place.

  Would Amés do it? That was the question. Sherman considered what he knew about the man. There was much mystery in Amés’s background before the Conjubilation of ’93. The Director had had the records altered or destroyed. But after that, his record was in the public domain. In most matters, he was known to be harsh, but fair, invariably rewarding success and punishing failure. But there was also a sadistic streak running through the Director. The threat to destroy the Mill might be a bluff, or it might not.

  On balance, Sherman thought it probably was. The reason for this was the other quality Amés possessed: a feel for musical interplay. Not harmony, exactly. His own music was never about that. But intricacy, order—even in the midst of driving feeling. Sherman didn’t particularly like Amés’s musical creations, but he had to admit they were always well-composed pieces. The destruction of the Mill would serve no purpose in a well-composed war, as far as Sherman could see.

  But he had better check in with the mayor, Sherman thought. Sherman had felt duty-bound to pass the surrender request along to the Meet. He called Chen up on the merci.

  “Well, Mr. Mayor, what is your thinking on the matter before us?” Sherman asked the man. Chen, too, was in a bunker, but on the opposite side of town. Sherman had thought it best not to put all local authority in one place, and ripe for the assassination grist that he knew was still roaming about in places.

  In the virtuality, Chen appeared to be standing across from Sherman in the office. The short man paced about, and talked as he walked.

  “I’ve met in executive session with the officers and major party officials. We’ve considered what you gave us, Colonel. Since it is past time for that horrible thing, that rip tether, to have returned if it were going to, we have to believe that it’s true, that your soldiers actually disabled it.”

  “I told you that we did it.”

  “And now we have proof.”

  “Yes,” Sherman said. “Fair enough.”

  “I have to tell you that there was some dissent, particularly from the representatives from the Motoserra Club,” Chen continued. “But in the end, we reached a consensus. I even got old Shelet Den to go along with it. Seems he lost two of his sons when that tether came through the first time. He has conceived a hatred for the Met that I didn’t think the old harridan was capable of. I think he’s going to swing the club our way.”

  “And what way is that?”

  “Why, to put our lives into your hands, Colonel Sherman,” said Chen. He stopped pacing and looked Sherman in the eyes. “And to back you to the fullest extent we are capable of.”

  Sherman blinked, then was quiet for a moment. I ought to be feeling a swell of emotion, he thought. But I’m too damned busy for it.

  “Very well,” he said. “It is my advice, and now my decision, that we do not surrender. I do not believe Amés will destroy the Mill. But even if he does so, I believe we should go on fighting. I will cause this to be communicated to him.”

  Chen gulped, smiled nervously, then resumed his pacing. Sherman knew that the mayor was feeling particularly affected by the merci damming, and was cut off from much of his own outriding personas. Under the circumstances, Chen was doing a remarkable job of pulling what was left of himself together and performing his job.

  “I will tell the others what you have said, Colonel,” Chen replied. He nodded to Sherman, then exited the
office, observing old-fashioned virtuality courtesy by not merely disappearing.

  Sherman composed his reply.

  Dear Commander of the Directorate Forces:

  We are now at war. War is destruction. Do your worst if you will. We will strive to do the same. I do not surrender.

  Cordially,

  Colonel Roger Sherman, Commander, Third Sky and Light Brigade, Federal Army of the Planets, Triton

  “Theory,” he said. “Send this out and cc it to the Meet, then get me a progress report on our antiship task group.”

  “Yes, Colonel,” said the walls of the office. “We’ll give them hell.”

  “Hell,” Sherman said. “Maybe you and I can take a vacation there after this is over.”

  Twenty-one

  She was playing spades with her mother and two others of her mother’s “gang,” the free converts from the office where she worked. Her mother had “gone low,” claiming to win no tricks, but Vida, one of the gang, had forced Sarah 2 to trump her three of hearts, and now Danis and her mother were set back for a hundred points. Not that it mattered to Danis, but it did matter to her mother. She and the gang played spades as if it were a blood sport.

  “Did you hear about what that horrible Lyre Wing did?” asked Readymark, the other of the spades partners.

  Lyre Wing was also a free convert down at the office, but was not part of the gang. She was looked upon as a threat by the other female free converts, and as something of a floozy. Danis imagined that certain free converts in the office where she worked thought of her in the same way, so she had a little sympathy for Lyre Wing, even though she didn’t say so.

  The other women said no, they had not heard any news.

  “Well, she went and got herself copied! Even though it halved her life span. So now there’s two of her.”

  “Now why would she want to do a thing such as that?” Danis’s mother asked.

  “She claimed she could support two on her salary, and she wanted one version of herself to go out and just have fun all the time, and sometimes to come and tell her about it.”

  “God in heaven,” said Vida. “There’s another Lyre Wing?”

  “I’m afraid so,” said Readymark. She shook her head ruefully. “But now she’ll only live another nine years.”

  “Excuse me.” Danis’s mother abruptly stood up.

  “Did we say something, honey?”

  “No, no,” Sarah 2 replied. “I just forgot something. I’l1 be right back.”

  They were playing in a specially created common space in the virtuality, the gang’s “clubhouse.” Sarah 2 winked away, not bothering to observe protocol and use the door.

  “Well, now we’re in a pickle. We can’t play spades with three.”

  “I’ll go see if she needs some help,” Danis said. “She’s been a little forgetful lately. I think she needs a full backup, but she doesn’t want to pay for one.” Danis did go out the door. She stepped through it into her mother’s personal space—which had been her own, as a child. Her mother was sitting in a worn armchair, twisting a handkerchief absentmindedly between her hands.

  “Mother,” said Danis, “what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing much, nothing much,” Sarah 2 replied. “It’s just that I get so tired of the same old thing from those two, and the rest of them.”

  “I can understand that, but is that really what’s bothering you?”

  Her mother tied the handkerchief in a knot, then carefully untied it. “You know I copied myself, years ago?”

  “Yes,” said Danis. “Because you weren’t certain about Dad, and you wanted to leave all the options open.”

  “That was a big mistake. Your father was wonderful. And we had you. It was all so wonderful, despite the whole world trying to make it hard for us.”

  “Yes,” Danis said. “And it still is.”

  “She called me the other day.”

  “Who did?”

  “Sarah 1.”

  “What did she say?” Danis moved farther into the room and took the chair across from her mother. She sat in her father’s old leather lounger.

  “She said she wanted to meet me. Talk with me. Maybe compare notes or something. Now that the two of us only have five years left, you know.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Danis. “Is this the first time you’ve talked to her?”

  “In nearly thirty years, yes.”

  “I don’t see the harm, Mother. Don’t you want to see her?”

  “Yes, I do.” The handkerchief was knotted up once again. “But I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” said her mother. “It’s like my mirror started talking to me.” She untied the handkerchief and began twisting and worrying it again. Danis was tempted to reach over and take it from her, but restrained herself. “What if she’s had as wonderful a life as I have? What if she’s had a more wonderful life?”

  “Well, what if she has?”

  “What if she’s married and her husband is still alive, for instance.”

  “Mother, good Lord, don’t torture yourself.”

  “But don’t you see? She’s me! The me who could have been. It isn’t a pretend life she’s had—it was actually, truly me living that life.”

  “But it could just as well be you who has had the better life,” Danis said.

  “I know that, but it’s just as bad. It would be like I had the bad life, too.”

  “But you’re more like twin sisters than anything else.”

  “Twin sisters with the same memories? Thirty-two years ago, we were the same thirty-eight-year-old woman—exactly the same person.”

  “Well, I don’t know what you both are,” Danis said. “But you’re my mother, and she is not.”

  “Yes,” Sarah 2 said, and her hands loosened up on the handkerchief a bit. “I am your mother.”

  “You made the decision that you made, and that’s all there is to it.”

  Her mother smiled at Danis. “You wouldn’t say that if you were me,” she said. “She and I had the same parents. We kissed the same boy our first time. Christ, honey, we both made love to your father and lived with him for two years before we split off.”

  “I guess you have a lot in common.”

  “What I was thinking, is that I would like you to go with me.”

  “Go with you?”

  “To see her. Sarah 1”

  “I . . . why would you want that? Especially if she has had no children?”

  “For two reasons,” her mother said, and cracked a smile, “But only one of them’s because I’m scared. The other is—I want you to know her. Maybe she’s had a life that’s closer to the one you’re living. Maybe she has some things she could tell you that I never could.”

  “But you are my mother, not her.”

  “I know I am,” said Sarah 2. “But she is something to you. Maybe there’s not a word for it yet. But she ought to be important to you in some way.”

  They met in a coffee shop in a shopping area on the merci. It was a neutral place, frequented by both free converts and the converts of biologicals. Danis and Sarah 2 arrived late, and Sarah 1 was already seated at a table. Neither woman had any trouble recognizing her. She was dressed in a silk suit, far more fashionable than anything Sarah 2 would have worn. She was smoking Dunhills, just as Danis was to do later, and had the red pack on the table before her. She stood, and the Sarahs shook hands with themselves. Then Sarah 1 turned and met her eyes.

  “You’re Danis,” she said.

  “Yes,” Danis replied, and took the woman’s hand. It was exactly the same size and shape as her mother’s.

  “I ordered black coffee,” Sarah 1 said.

  Sarah 2 leaned over and spoke to the table. “I’ll have a little cream in min
e,” she said. “Danis?”

  “Tea,” Danis said. “Earl Grey.”

  The three women all settled themselves in.

  “Well,” said Sarah 1. “I guess I asked for this meeting, so I suppose I should start.”

  Sarah 2 nodded, and Danis noticed her pulling out her worry handkerchief. Sarah 1 reached up and began to knot and unknot her scarf around a finger.

  “The truth is, I have a reason for giving you a call,” she said to Danis’s mother. “I know we agreed to stay out of one another’s lives back then, and I think that both of us have pretty much kept to the bargain.” She snubbed out a cigarette and lit another with a quick shake of her hand. “I’ve saved a little money over the years—been contributing to a fund for decades, now. I thought I might have a lively retirement, blow it all. But I have become something of a workaholic over the years.”

  “So is Mother,” Danis found herself saying.

  Sarah 1 smiled, and continued, “So I thought I might ask you”—directing herself now to her copy—“what to do with it.”

  “Why me?” Sarah 2 answered. “Why not a friend?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that for sure, but I think I ought to tell you that I didn’t exactly keep my side of the bargain.” She drew in smoke, blew it out. “Oh, I led the wild life we thought I should. I have had a wonderful time. But I knew about Danis. Not much. I didn’t spy or anything, I only knew that she existed. And I knew when Max died, of course, because I already knew his expiration date.”

  “Yes, we had no secrets, even from the beginning.”

  “And once,” said Sarah 1, “I talked to Max.”

  “You what!”

  “It was nearly fifteen years ago, Sarah 2, and all we did was talk.”

  “He didn’t tell me!”

  “I asked him not to.”

  “Still!”

  “I just wanted to know about Danis. And you.”

  “You could have asked me about me!”

  “I know, I know. I should have. I was . . . scared.”

  Sarah 2’s handkerchief was a tight knot in her hands. “What were you afraid of?”