Hotel Andromeda

by Edited by Jack L. Chalker

  When the food came, it was both delicious and overpowering. He enjoyed it immensely, but halfway through the second course, he vomited. The girls got up and left. Dumbfounded, Warren lay on the table, retching again and again. After three hundred and ninety-four years without any food but corn meal, he found to his dismay that perhaps he might not be able to stomach anything else.

  Dazed, he decided to return to his room. On the way, Warren stopped to gaze through a window into a vast tube—a chamber where the artificial gravity was so powerful that gases became swirling frozen liquids. Creatures moved in there—some were like giant purple amoebas straddling layers of frozen green methane, while others higher up were fist-sized white squids or spiders that swam through liquid helium in little Jerking spasms.

  A sentry droid stopped and cautioned Warren against trying to enter the aliens’ living chamber. But Warren just stood, watching. He held his hand to the window, felt the tug of that gravity, pulling him toward that alien world. Warren laughed. It was like the unrelenting tug of sex, like the grip of death.

  Warren felt alone. More alone than ever. The sinking feeling he’d experienced in the restaurant came over him. Death or sex, he told himself, death or sex. One or the other. He could not decide which. Over the past few days, he had found the hotel to be very accommodating. He had only to ask at the corner console in his room, and they offered virtually any service. He wondered. If I were to order death and sex from the hotel, which would they bring first? He imagined the woman of his dreams, the beautiful dark-eyed woman he had wanted to love for so long, and he went to his room—a simple room where an artificial sun shone on a carpet of living grass and a hammock swung between two trees.

  Once in his room. Warren did not know what to do for entertainment, so he stood with his eyes closed. He tried to imagine holding a woman, just putting his arms around a woman casually, but he had not seen one in so long that the image kept fading. And at length he imagined a hoe in his hand. Warren stooped, as he had been doing for nearly four hundred years, and moved his arms steadily as if he were hoeing imaginary weeds from the grass.

  A chime sounded, and Warren straightened. It chimed again, and Warren ambled to the door, wondering if the sound came from outside. When he touched the pressure plate, the door opened. A cyborg stood there, a powerful woman with hair the light brown of young corn silk, with massive artificial arms, body armor, extra sensors, and RAM storage containers bolted to her head. Warren stared into her face, wondered what it would be like to wrap his arms around her, just hold her flesh with all that metal.

  “Warren Allen Garceau?” the cyborg asked. “Penitent from Darius IV?”

  “Yes?” Warren answered.

  “I am Marinda Chase, from hotel security.”

  Without thinking. Warren turned to face the wall, spread his legs, and placed his hands flat against the wall in preparation for a body search. Marinda stood somewhat surprised. “You are not under arrest,” she hurried to explain. “I came at the request of a hotel client. A woman who says you once knew her on Earth. She would like to meet you again.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes, a Miss Rebecca Lynn Lyons.”

  The name struck Warren like a fist, and he found himself gasping, trying to recall who she might be. “Rebecca Lyons?”

  “Yes, you murdered her on Earth long ago,” Marinda said, “but her memories, her personality, are stored in a virtual reality aboard the hotel’s module for deceased personalities, Heavenly One. She would like to meet you there—in heaven. She says she will pay you well for the privilege. Will you come?”

  Rebecca Lyons—that was her name—the dark-eyed woman of his dreams. Warren nodded dumbly and smiled. He recalled that hurt, the ache of wanting to love her, and he wondered why she would want to see him. She will hate me, he realized. She will want to hurt me, as I hurt her. He could smell the trap. Yet he could not leave it alone. And an odd thought struck him. If she were in a virtual heaven program, then perhaps she would not be angry. Perhaps she would forgive him. Perhaps she would even be grateful that he had killed her and sent her there. Warren thought for a long time before answering, “Yes, I’ll come.”

  Aboard the module Heavenly One, Warren found only a slate gray room with several cubicles where visitors could recline in comfortable chairs. Outside of these, the module had no accommodations for the living. The cyborg Marinda Chase plugged the synaptic adaptors into the socket at the base of Warren’s skull and fit a helmet over his head. He had wanted to bring a gift, but what do you give someone living in a virtual reality? They had no physical needs, no bodies. Warren knew little of virtual realities. They had been young when he was young, and he had never created a world with computer images. He did not know what to expect.

  Greens and blues swirled before Warren’s eyes and his nostrils filled with a strange sweet essence. He sniffed: a warm summer sun beaming upon grass and stone, the scent of water, and some type of sweet blossoms. Sounds began to arise, the drone of bees, a light wind whispering through the grass, the peep of a bird among forest branches, someone laughing. Then the images; He was sitting upon a stone chair carved in a black basalt mountain. Dark green hanging vines draped the mountain like a living curtain, and the scent of their sweet red flowers filled the air. Honey bees droned along the cliff face like motes of dust caught in the sunlight. All around him was a sparse deciduous forest surrounding a shadowed meadow. Somewhere off in the trees Warren could hear a tumbling brook, and laughter. It was late afternoon, almost twilight, so that the slanting sun over the trees came faint and golden.

  “Hello?” Warren called. “Hello?”

  He stood for a long time, until distant laughter answered him from the shadowed woods. The angels came for him, floating through the forest like thistle down. Two young women wearing luminous robes of green. Their translucent wings were broad, like those of a butterfly, and the wings trembled in the sunlight. The angels landed at his feet, and they were twins: Clear skinned, clear eyed, with long dark hair and eyes like brown pools. They were young women. Warren gazed into their faces for a long time, gazed at their bare shoulders, and the yearning he fell for them grew. “Are you Rebecca Lyons?” he asked.

  One girl laughed, stepped toward him playfully, took his hand between hers. “We are only her servants. She is a goddess now, ruler of this world. Will you let us take you to her?”

  Warren whispered, “Of course.” One of the angels clapped, and the whole forest came alive. Satyrs pranced in from the woods playing golden flutes and they danced around Warren on mincing hooves, their goat tails twitching in time to the music. Pale green naked tree sprites with large breasts brought a pallet draped with silks, and while the angels stripped Warren’s clothes off, the sprites cheered and fought to lift him onto the pallet.

  Once Warren was naked, they carried him, dancing and singing through the forest, sometimes stopping to spin him in circles. Sometimes dryads would be singing in the trees above him, and they would toss baskets of leaves and flower petals on his head. Once, the revelers chased a herd of giant pigs from their trail. Fairy lights danced above him, and off in the deeper shadows under the trees, Warren could see men with the heads of deer moving nervously, as deer will.

  The procession carried Warren forward to the sounds of flutes and song and drums, through the thickening woods as the day died and the shadows took on a life of their own. They carried him for hours, laughing and celebrating, lighting torches in the darkness, until they reached a mountain pass.

  Even from the bottom of the trail. Warren could see flames lighting the night at the mountain’s top, a great bonfire, and around it danced the stag men and satyrs and naked tree sprites.

  For a man who had forgotten words, the scene was one of total delight. He could not even guess at the names of the wonders he beheld. Instead, he was like a child, amazed, drinking pure pleasure and enjoyment. Rebecca must have forgiven me, he reasoned, to bring me to heaven. When the wood sprites stopped at the foot of t
he mountain to paint him in stripes of yellow and orange. Warren did not mind even though their hands were rough. When the satyrs gave him wine, he drank until his head spun.

  The satyrs poured more wine for him, pointed and laughed. Warren could feel a warmth on his head, burning spots, and he touched his forehead, felt the nubs of goat horns sprouting above his eyes. He jumped up and danced around on the pallet as they carried him up the mountain, and was amazed to find his feet numb. Nimble little hooves were growing where the toes and feet had been, and his naked legs were covered with a fine layer of goat hair.

  One of the satyrs tossed him a flute, and Warren took it to his lips, found that it played a haunting melody that gave voice to all his lusts and desires far better than he could ever speak them. He spun upon his pallet, dancing and laughing and playing hymns to the moon and darkness until they carried him before the goddess Rebecca Lyons. She was reclining upon a daybed in a small meadow, and she was more beautiful than Warren had ever dreamed. The pale handsome face framed by dark hair, the obsidian eyes staring out at him.

  The bed itself was the purest shade of white he could ever imagine, and Rebecca wore a single transparent sheet to cover the sleek contours of her body, the generous breasts. A scent more alluring than honeysuckle wafted from her bed. All around her meadow were trees, great oaks with twisted branches and dark leaves. The bonfires burned in a circle around her, so that Rebecca was a singular adornment to the forest.

  Warren stopped singing, stopped dancing, let the golden flute fall from his hands, forgotten.

  “Baaa…,” he said, all his desire, all his lust and yearning for her coming out in a single bleating sound not unlike a belch.

  “Do you remember me?” the Goddess asked.

  Warren bleated, and tried to hobble nearer, but found that his goat feet were suddenly clumsy. He smiled up at her, and for a moment the goddess stopped, confused.

  “You smile? As if you are happy to see me?” she asked. “I bring you here naked, painted like a fool, and show you yourself as a dumb animal, and you smile?”

  Warren bleated, looking around in bewilderment. The lust he felt for her was strong, and the pink tip of his organ began extending from its hairy sheath. Yet beneath the lust was a desire more refined, a yearning to beg her forgiveness, to seek her love. He wanted nothing more than to climb on that bed with her, to caress the face of god with one hand and soothe her anger.

  “Take him!” Rebecca ordered, and suddenly the satyrs and wood sprites had him. They pulled him down from the pallet and twisted his arms behind, held Warren’s face to the ground. Someone tied his right wrist to an exposed tree root, then his left, then his feet, tightening the ropes so that his legs spread wide.

  Warren, his face in the dirt, panted, raising small puffs of dust from the ground, and the satyrs began to dance around him, their eyes gleaming in the firelight, followed by the men with stag’s heads. They danced in wide circles and sang in deep voices, sometimes coming close enough to caress his naked buttocks, watching him with lust in their eyes, as if they could not wait for the goddess to give her command so that they could fall on him. Through it all, Warren grunted, but he did not try to struggle free of his bonds or fight.

  Rebecca watched, amused at first, but gradually she began to frown as if her face would settle into a scowl. Finally she spoke, “Do you understand why you are here?” she asked. With a wave of her hand, the goddess returned his voice to him.

  “I… don’t know. You invited me,” Warren offered.

  “I brought you here so I could watch you get raped, the way you raped me,” Rebecca said evenly. “I’m going to let the satyrs have you, one by one, until you cry out in agony the way I cried when you took me. Then I personally am going to slit your throat, here. And at the same time that I do it here, I have paid the security guard Marinda Chase to slit your throat outside the virtual reality, and you will die.”

  “Oh,” Warren said.

  “You aren’t frightened? You didn’t even guess that I wanted vengeance?”

  “I guessed,” Warren admitted. “I don’t remember what I might have done to you. I guess… I came here to find out. I’ve been raped, in prison back on Earth. I know what it’s like. As for death, I’ve never been afraid of it. I’ve died six times. And I’ve spent a long time in hell, on a planet called Darius IV. I guess, maybe, I came here because I wanted to see your heaven, if only for a moment. Forgive me if I enjoyed the taste of it, even for a moment, when you didn’t want me to.”

  “You think this is heaven?” Rebecca said. “Can you understand the tedium of having everything you want, when you want it? I would trade a day of life for an eternity here, and you stole my life!”

  Warren looked up, sweat running from his face. “I know you hate me, but the man you hated died three hundred and fifty years ago. If you want, you can go ahead and kill me now.” Warren waited, humbled, naked. For a moment Rebecca’s scowl faltered. He almost dared hope for mercy.

  Then Rebecca shrieked, and the sound of her wrath filled the skies. For one endless moment the flames of the bonfires leaped up around him, like a wall, like a huge crown, and Warren took their full fury, felt them crisping his flesh, burning the skin from his bones, boiling his eyes in their sockets. He tried to scream, but only steam shot from his mouth. He twitched to flames more caustic than any acid. In that moment, he wanted death more purely than ever before, but it would not come. His sanity felt as if it would boil and bubble away as cruelly as his flesh, but still death would not come.

  The flames were snuffed more suddenly than they had arisen. Warren found himself in the slate gray visiting room, gasping, burning. The cyborg Marinda Chase stood over him, the plug from the neural jack in one hand, a long bare knife in the other. Warren saw that a second core was plugged into the neural net, running up to the socket at the base of Marinda’s skull. She too had been plugged into the illusion, awaiting the goddess’s orders.

  “You can go,” Marinda said. “Rebecca’s had her fun. You’ll never suffer enough to satisfy her. I suspect that your other victims would feel the same, if they were around to talk. I can understand their hate, but I won’t kill you for them.”

  “But you thought about killing me,” Warren said, unable to imagine what he had done to her. The cyborg looked into his eyes, and Warren saw danger there, and the end of his hope. Marinda might not kill him, but she was the kind who would never forgive him. She would just keep exacting a toll, day after day, minute after unceasing minute.

  She said in a deadly tone, “Get out, before I change my mind.”

  The shining shuttle pod returned to Darius IV only two days before I was scheduled to leave. Warren Garceau got out along with two servant droids and began offloading seeds and young fruit trees, various desert reptiles, and other forms of animal life from Earth. I thought it a great waste of his wealth—him, someone who could live almost anywhere, do almost anything.

  Still, he was free to do as he liked, and I no longer needed the guardhouse. Earth had stopped imprisoning men ages ago, having found more advanced and profitable ways to reprogram criminals. Still, I had managed to keep Warren imprisoned until his sentence was completed, as was my job. I bore him no grudge, so I gave him the guardhouse as his own, along with the surrounding mountains and the orchards.

  I asked Warren before I left what he had found at Hotel Andromeda that made him want to flee civilization so soon.

  “A world too much like the one I left,” he answered.

  “What of the things you wanted?” I asked. “What of sex and death?”

  Warren grunted, looked away. “I’ve lived without love for a long time. I guess I can keep on living without it. As for death, I figure I have the rest of eternity to explore it.” I looked into Warren’s eyes, and I saw his dishonesty. Sex and death. I knew. I knew that he had somehow gotten his fill of both. Suddenly I became afraid, wondering who he may have raped, who he had killed.

  I did not wave goodbye to Warren as I
left. The cockatoos rose below the shuttle in a cloud, and beyond the green of trees in the mountain vale and the ruby desert surrounding it, there was little to see. I pieced together his story at Hotel Andromeda myself, and even visited Rebecca Lyons in her heaven. She still had the downloaded personality of Warren there with her, burning in flames, screaming. She said she would keep it there forever, as if it were a treasured gift. But I contacted Hotel Security and managed to erase the stolen construct. I read its memories before releasing it from its pain. Still, all these years later, I sometimes think of Warren.

  An explorer returned to Darius IV a decade ago and described the world as fecund. In the mountains, he said there were fruit trees—cherry, mango, pear, avocado, olive, peach, apricot—and wild strawberries the size of a man’s fist. Salmon and giant trout leap in the streams. He found wild fields of corn and rice, and wheat growing over your head, and beneath the double suns, the plants blossom all year long. Stronger trees and grasses have even begun to encroach into the desert wastes, finding place among cactus. There is no one there now to harvest the fruits, so they are consumed by lizards and flocks of ivory cockatoos. This is what Warren made of his world, and I imagine that I would not have done as well.