Sidney's Comet

by Brian Herbert

  Moments later, Dr. Hudson rolled alone up an entrance ramp to the Bu-Tech Tower. He pressed his palm against the electronic security monitor’s black glass identity plate, mentoed: GW one, Dr. Richard Hudson, Bu-Tech Minister.

  He felt a strong vacuum against his hand. Then it released, and a red light on the monitor turned to green.

  As Dr. Hudson stood at the security monitor, two sayermen wearing brown-hooded robes rose above Technology Square in a pilotless heliwagon. Onesayer Edward squinted in sunlight from the east, extended his left hand to Lastsayer Steven, who sat to his right. “Peace be upon you,” Onesayer said, raising his voice over the thump of rotors.

  Lastsayer touched his brown-and-gold onyx ring to a like ring worn by the other man, coughed and replied, “Peace be upon you, Onesayer. Thank you for instructing me in the Holy Order,” Again, he coughed.

  “Nasty cough,” Onesayer observed.

  “Felt it coming on yesterday,” Lastsayer sniffed, looking at Onesayer’s wide, puffy-fat face. “I have been tired since arrival.”

  “Rocket lag. I see it all the time.” Onesayer reached into his robe pocket, removed a chrome pillbox. He selected two yellow pills and handed them to Lastsayer. ‘Take a Happy Pill and a water capsule,” Onesayer instructed. “You’ll . . . uh . . . you will feel better.” My speech, Onesayer thought. It slips into apostrophes . . . another sign of my break with the Master. . . .

  Onesayer watched the younger man hesitate and then accept the pills. Lastsayer had clear, wrinkle-free skin, like that of all sayermen. Moderately plump, he had an upturned nose and light green eyes that darted nervous glances around the edge of his hood. He looks so innocent, Onesayer thought, recalling a time nearly three centuries earlier when he had been the same way.

  Lastsayer held the pills in an open palm, looked at them inquisitively. “These are allowed?” he asked. “I have heard—”

  “They are not allowed” Onesayer said, “but take them anyway.” He smiled, adding, “We do not take many of them, you understand . . . maybe seven or eight a day. You never had one?”

  Lastsayer smiled nervously, coughed again. “No, but I see no harm . . . if you approve.” He popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed them.

  “How are things on Pleasant Reef?” Onesayer asked.

  “In turmoil. Our women have demonstrated the past two weeks. Can you imagine? They demand positions in the Sayerhood!”

  They share the Sayerhood now!” Onesayer said angrily. “Is it not enough for them to raise the youngsayermen of our order?”

  “Apparently not.” Lastsayer gazed out the window, saw a white Product Failure van speeding along the expressway below, red lights flashing. He was unable to hear the sirens over the thump of rotors.

  “And Sayer Superior Lin-Ti . . . He is well?”

  “Yes. He spent countless hours tutoring me.”

  “Your tutelage is far from complete. Uncle Rosy even reminds me that I have much to learn.”

  Lastsayer nodded. Presently he said, “I saw the Uncle Rosy meckie on its feet as we landed.”

  “A message on right living.”

  “The history primer told me of this, Onesayer. The meckie holds a cross and a machine gear, and I was taught the significance of these symbols.”

  Onesayer looked out the window, saw the Black Box of Democracy two blocks to the right. Feeling a need to say the correct things, he said, “You studied the near civil war between the Christian Church and the technologists, I presume?”

  “Yes,” Lastsayer said. “Two armed camps . . . bitter feelings. . . . ”

  “Over petty matters, as the Master pointed out at the time. He brought the adversaries together.”

  “By protecting the economic base of each side,” Lastsayer said, demonstrating his knowledge. “In the end,, it all boiled down to economics, with each side wanting more followers and more property.”

  “It is good that you paid attention to your lessons. That is why you were selected for Earth duty.” Onesayer watched another heliwagon prepare to take off from the roof of the Black Box while their craft circled half a block away, waiting for clearance.

  “Thank you, Onesayer. But it is more than the text which interests me now.”

  “How so?”

  “A story was told to me on Pleasant Reef . . . by one of the child-bearing women . . . that Uncle Rosy met with the Christian cardinals privately after the truce.”

  “What did you hear about that?” Onesayer snapped, realizing the emotion of his response was more automatic than real. “That Uncle Rosy attempted to convince the cardinals to give up the cross symbol . . . in favor of a human brain design. According to the story, Uncle Rosy felt the brain—as a miraculous and basically mysterious entity—was a more proper symbol of the universal God.”

  Onesayer scowled, glared out the window. Presently he said, “Uncle Rosy is a complex man, at once a great economist and a man of the cloth. What you heard is true, but this was not supposed to be mentioned on Pleasant Reef.”

  “I will give you the name of the woman.”

  “Good. The Master prefers to tell that story himself.” I don’t really care about this, Onesayer thought. Let Uncle Rosy’s whole damned system fall into disarray.

  “I did not know,” Lastsayer said.

  “Act as if you are not familiar with the story when the Master relates it to you.”

  “Yes, Onesayer.”

  “The cardinals were a stubborn lot, Lastsayer, and became extremely upset at Uncle Rosy’s suggestion. Our Master decided to back down upon seeing their reaction, fearful that he might upset the delicate truce.”

  “Thank you for telling me this.”

  “You have an alert mind, Lastsayer. I like that.”

  Lastsayer Steven did not respond. He watched the other heliwagon take off. Their craft began to descend.

  “Symbolism is very important, Lastsayer. Tragically, the cross Uncle Rosy’s meckie holds may have led to the Holy War of twenty-three-twenty-six.” Another of the Master’s errors, Onesayer thought.

  Lastsayer’s green eyes flashed intently. “How is that?” he asked.

  “As you know, the first Council of Ten was formed in the negotiations between Uncle Rosy, the scientists and the cardinals.”

  “I know: equal input from the cardinals and the scientists. But that was formed seven years before Uncle Rosy withdrew to the Black Box.”

  “Correct. After Uncle Rosy’s withdrawal in twenty-three eighteen, a popular movement fanned by Cardinal John of Atlantic City and other Christian zealots demanded a holy war against all other religions. They said the cross held by Uncle Rosy was a sign of approval from the Master.”

  “I was not aware of that,” Lastsayer said, watching the glassite roof of the Black Box grow closer while their craft descended. “Did Uncle Rosy approve, considering his feelings about a universal, rather than a Christian, God?”

  “Uncle Rosy has always been torn between religious and economic issues. He likes to say economic considerations are more important. . . . ”

  “But you are not so certain?”

  “I too have much to learn.”

  Lastsayer thought he heard bitterness in the other man’s tone. He thought for a moment, then said: “Should Uncle Rosy have stepped in before the holy war started? I mean no disrespect.”

  “He wanted to give the AmFeds free reign, except in the case of a government overthrow attempt. He did not wish to meddle too much, but when he saw the destruction being caused by AmFed bombs . . .” Onesayer fell silent. Dust swirled on the rooftop from the wind of the helirotors.

  “He saw the economic futility of destroying foreign markets,” Lastsayer said. “That would have put millions of AmFeds out of work!”

  Onesayer sighed. ‘The AmFeds became so emotional over their holy war that they forgot about economics entirely.”

  “So the Master intervened, with you as emissary. Sayer Superior told me of your important role.”

  The heli
wagon jolted as it landed.

  A smile moved across Onesayer’s large mouth. “I merely delivered a written bull to the Council of Ten reminding them of their economic responsibilities,” he said. “I did not speak a word to them, of course. We are not permitted to address common people.”

  “The bull spoke of the Principle of Economic Captivity, I presume,” Lastsayer said. He heard the heliwagon’s engines begin to whine down.

  “Yes,” Onesayer said. Their safety harnesses snapped off automatically. He placed a hand on the front of each armrest. “The bull also specified that three nations would be established on Earth . . . the American Federation of Freeness, Afrikari and the Union of Atheist States. In its public version, this became known as the Treaty of Rabat. It survives to this day. Christian, pagan and atheist.” Lastsayer pursed his lips thoughtfully. He rose when Onesayer did, added, “What a great man the Master is! I look forward to my first session with him!” Onesayer led the way down the aisle, said with a turn of his hooded head to throw words over one shoulder: “You will never see his face, of course. No one has, since he entered the Black Box.”

  “Oh, but just to be near him. The thrill of it!”

  Onesayer nodded as he rolled onto an exit ramp, recalling a time long before when he had felt the same way.

  Sidney turned sleepily in bed, throwing one arm over a rubber-skinned pleasie-meckie that lay beside him. “Carla,” he whispered in an awakening haze, “I love you, Carla.”

  His eyes popped open, and when he became aware of reality, Sidney cursed at his misfortune. He pushed the meckie away.

  The naked pleasie-meckie had fine-toned muscles like Carla’s, with an aquiline nose and shoulder-length, golden-brown hair.

  Sidney mentoed it to life. Away, he commanded tersely. Return to your station.

  Obediently, the pleasie-meckie rose and dressed quickly in undergarments which lay in disarray on the floor. Then, as Sidney watched, it rolled into the closet and took a standing position to one side. He turned away, stared at the spray-textured ceiling. Sidney heard rustling in the closet for several moments. Then the meckie closed the closet door and Sidney was left alone.

  He stretched and yawned. As usual, it was late morning when he awakened, and Sidney could see synthetic sunlight through the open doorway of the bathroom module. Moments later, he stood naked from the waist up at a grooming machine in the bathroom.

  The tiny modular room was warm and cheerful, with a planter box of plastic marigolds along one wall beneath a sun-lite panel. White synthetic light from the panel warmed his left side.

  Thinking about his strange space dream of the night before and of the haunting, recurring voices, Sidney waited while an electric shaver at the end of a right-handed meckie-arm trimmed the stubble off his face. The U-shaped grooming machine, Sidney’s height overall, peered back at him with its mirror face between seeing-eye meckie-arms on each side. An array of brightly colored buttons above the machine’s sink could be mento- or hand-activated. Gold lettering across the top of the mirror proclaimed: “UNCLE ROSY LOVES US.”

  Sidney turned his face to one side when the shave was finished, trying to find a better angle in the mirror. This made his ears seem to protrude less, but the pug nose looked worse. He sighed, wondered sadly, Why can’t I be better looking? I’m not even average!

  The meckie-arms took Lemon Delight Shaving Lotion from a dispenser next to the mirror and patted Sidney’s face. The lotion stung; his eyes watered. Sidney always resented mechanical grooming, but held up his arms cooperatively while deodorant spray was pumped all over his pear-shaped torso.

  In the next grooming maneuver, Sidney knew he had to be careful. He watched with trepidation as the left meckie-arm grasped a toothbrush and took on a load of Shiny Bright Toothpaste from a wall dispenser. A smiling picture of President Ogg looked back at Sidney from the dispenser with a message printed across perfectly even, sparkling white teeth: “VOTE FOR OGG.”

  The toothbrush darted into Sidney’s open mouth and surge-scrubbed every tooth. Several times recently, not paying sufficient attention, Sidney had failed to open his mouth. The disastrous result: sticky white paste rubbed all over his nose and chin. Not this time, he told himself. The meckie finished with an automatic rinse, gargle, face wash and set of Sidney’s curly black hair, all accomplished without strangling, drenching or costing him the loss of any hair.

  After breakfast, Sidney moto-shoed across his small condominium unit to the living room module. This too was a cheerful room, despite the location of Sidney’s unit at the building core where it could not receive natural light. Bright splashes of gold and orange washed furnishings and walls with color. An orange, plastic-encased videodome dominated the room’s center, directly beneath a ceiling-mounted sun-lite panel.

  He rolled past the videodome, pausing in front of a wall decorated with a gold and black checkerboard design. Concentrating upon one of the squares, he mentoed an unseen combination dial and heard the click of tumblers as he projected each number. The square slid away, revealing a lighted wallsafe filled with leatherbound scrapbooks and an assortment of personal treasures. He selected two volumes and an old-style pen, went with them to the couch.

  Sidney sat down pensively, stacked both volumes on the coffee table and opened the cover of the top one slowly. A handwritten title had been scrawled across the yellowing first page in large, childish script:

  MY PILOT LOG, VOLUME ONE

  Property of Captain Sidney Malloy American Federation Space Patrol

  He turned the page, read his fantasy: “I joined the Space Patrol as a lad often, assuming the duties of cabin boy on the Star Class Destroyer AFSP Nathan Rogers. Within six months, my leadership abilities became so apparent that I was promoted to Captain and given command of the ship.”

  He looked away, smiling as he thought, Did I really write this?

  Sidney continued reading: “My first assignment: seek and recapture the escaped arch-criminal Jed Laredo. Laredo is wanted for detonating a powerful ice bomb following his escape from the asteroid colony at LaGrange Six. Twelve-thousand inhabitants perished in the explosion. He is believed to be hiding near an abandoned mining base at Agarratown on the Celtian planet of Redondo. . . . ”

  He flipped the ensuing pilot log pages, read the successful and heroic conclusion of his fantasy mission. Other fantasies followed, entered meticulously beside blueprints and specifications on a variety of spacecraft.

  In one sense, the space scrapbooks seemed childish to him now, but still he felt the longings he had experienced as a youth. The exploits were not real . . . he had always known this . . . but the adventures contained a spirit of hope . . . a certain innocence and naiveté concerning his future. This morning, as he prepared to write about his confused ego pleasure dream of the prior evening, Sidney still had hope . . . but it was not so bright and untarnished as it once had been.

  He sighed, placed Volume One to one side and opened the next scrapbook, his fourteenth. Flipping to a blank page, he began writing: “While patrolling the Signus XX-4 Quadrant in the Summer of 2605, I received urgent word . . .”

  How can I get this down? he wondered, rubbing the pen thoughtfully against his lower lip. Those strange, maddening voices. . . .

  Interrupted by the doorchime, Sidney mentoed his new singing wrist digital. A sultry female voice sang to him cheerfully in a sing-song tone: “A.M., ten-forty-one-point-three-four.”

  Wonder who’s there? he thought, welcoming the interruption. He replaced the volumes in the wallsafe and reseated the panel.

  As Sidney opened the hall door, Bob Hodges, his tall and thickly-muscled downstairs neighbor, rolled in without an invitation. “Hi Sid,” he said cheerily. “How ya doin’?” Hodges was puppy-friendly, thoughtless but well-meaning.

  Sidney regrouped his thoughts and returned the greeting. Then he led the way down a woodgrain linoleum hallway to the living room module.

  “How about a little video?” Hodges asked, seeing the videodome
as they entered the room.

  Sidney grunted in affirmation, rolled directly into the videodome without another thought and sat in his favorite bucket seat, one of four inside. He sank into the videodome chair, consumed by the billowing softness of authentic Corinthian vinyl. Mentoing a channel selector to the left of his seat, Sidney watched a green button on the selector depress.

  “Have to make sure you watch enough home video,” Hodges said, laughing. “Hear you had a recent visit from those folks at the Anti-Cheapness League.”

  Sidney heard the videodome door slide shut. An overhead light dimmed. “It was nothing,” he answered matter-of-factly. ‘They were investigating a faulty videodome report. Someone did a line test seconds after one of my dome circuits blew. With no repair order in on my set, they were concerned that it might have been down for several days.”

  “Oh,” Hodges said. “No big deal.”

  “Naw. I gave them details on the video programs I’d been watching before the blowout, signed their form and they left.” Sidney mentoed channel forty-seven on the selector.

  Sidney watched three-dimensional screens all around light up, giving viewers the illusion of being seated in a crowded auditorium. People chattered at nearby seats, and Sidney made out details of their conversations.

  “Jimmy Earl is next,” a young man in the crowd said, “with the latest from Rok-More. Then the Mister Sugar Follies.”

  “How exciting!” a woman in a fur coat said.

  Spotlighted at center stage, a man in a white sequin Western outfit spoke excitedly into a handheld microphone. “The latest from Rok-More Records!” he said, waving an arm to his rear toward a mini-stage containing a spotlighted record cube display. “Donna Butler’s in the Happy Shopping Ground, folks, but her songs will never die! Supplies are limited, so order ‘Donna’s Greatest Hits’ now! As a bonus for those of you in our home video audience, I’ll throw in this delightful little ‘Heart of Gold’ pendant.” He held the pendant up, added in a voice grown suddenly tender, “Donna’s signature is on the back, folks. Won’t you pledge your undying love for Donna? Order now!”