IGMS Issue 39

by IGMS

  "You can't take pictures with a broken axle, Phil, but never mind that. I need you to pull all this together for me."

  "Good one. Okay: I'm going to die, probably very soon --"

  "And again, thanks for telling me the other day. Autumn seemed surprised that you could make it into town on foot."

  "What Autumn doesn't know keeps her off my back." Keller was silent for a few seconds; when he spoke again, Cerna strained to hear him. "I want to buck the system, Toro. I don't want to be cremated like everybody else, and especially not like the lizards. I want to be buried. And by now you should have your choice of four graves to put me in."

  "Very clever. But why? You won't know the difference."

  "Maybe not, but I think the Peshari will."

  Cerna resisted the urge to shake his head. "You're sick, the Peshari are weird and won't let Autumn fix you, we don't have tornadoes, but if we bury you the Peshari will be able to tell?"

  Keller pursed his lips, looked up, and tipped his head side-to-side a few times. "That would be interesting, but no, I don't think they'd notice without being told. So someone will have to tell them."

  "Are they going to care?"

  "I certainly hope so. In fact, I'm counting on it. But here, process this: Do you think the Peshari consider humans to be sapient, or just sentient?"

  "I thought they were the same thing."

  "No, sentience is just being aware, conscious of the sensory world. Sapience is being intelligent, as in homo sapiens. We obviously think of ourselves that way, but do the Peshari? If Ettinger is right, and she's learned more about them than anyone else, they do. They think of us as equals, or nearly equals --"

  "Which of course is why they attacked us --"

  "That's right! You were trying to make a joke, but it's not a joke. When they got here and found our little settlement right where they wanted to live, they didn't attack right away. They didn't know what to make of us. Likewise, us for them. They were obviously an advanced civilization as far as we were concerned, so we were happy to make peace with them, but human space flight alone didn't impress them. Do you remember, about a week after they first landed, what happened?"

  Cerna thought back. "I remember Isaac Burriss got killed about that time. He fell in the river, hit his head on a rock."

  "Yes, and Jean invited the aliens to come out to Eyrie Ridge for the memorial service. Almost everybody came, which seemed to impress the Peshari. And even though we hadn't learned much of each other's language, they took note when Isaac's brother released his ashes into the wind. At that point, we became near-sapient in their eyes."

  "Near-sapient?"

  "Right. Not quite to their level, for three reasons. One, we didn't make Issac's remains into a permanent display, like they do. Two, we live in enclosed buildings, which they would never do. And three, they saw some of us entering the mine, something else they would never do. To them, that made us not quite 'wise.'"

  "Where do you come up with these things?"

  "I read. Suzanne Ettinger's reports are all in the public database. And I think. You should try it some time."

  "Prick."

  "'If you prick us, do we not bleed?'"

  Cerna rubbed his face. "So the Peshari decided we were people and not animals."

  "Yes, because we treated our dead with at least some respect, and in a way similar to them. If we had built a funeral pyre, like the Greeks and others used to, I think that would have satisfied them. Hell, that might have impressed them.

  "But regardless, it was good for us. If they saw us as animals, they would treat us much worse. As people, or near-people, they decided that they should take care of us. I don't think they expected us to resist so strongly when they first attacked . . ." He paused, and looked away.

  "They thought that taking the Commander would be enough, didn't they? Like gladiators, or a champion or something?"

  Keller wiped his eyes and nodded. "I think so. They were surprised that we didn't give in immediately, and that it would take so long to get us to surrender.

  "To them, they've given us very lenient terms. Technology enough to live pretty well, though they keep ratcheting back what they let us have. A functioning economy and a good bit of self-determination, even pretty broad freedom of movement though they took away all the long-range transport and comms. To us, of course -- or at least to some of us -- the terms are just heinous. The gates may be open, but a friendly prison is still a prison."

  Cerna watched as Keller responded to a minor alarm on his console. Some pieces of the puzzle were still missing, but maybe he was starting to see the shape of it.

  "So, you think getting buried instead of cremated will be, what, some kind of insult to the lizards?"

  "I hope it's more than that. You've only known cremation or reclamation your whole life, and not much of that so long as everyone's nanos were working. Back on Earth we used to have graveyards full of buried people. They made for interesting history, and fun stories, too -- you've probably seen some of them in your movies. I think that's why the colony never did much with Halloween. It's hard to get scared when there's no place for the ghouls and zombies to come from.

  "Anyway, Suzanne got access to some of the Peshari history and then to some of their myths. A lot of it is strange and entertaining, tall tales and epic heroes and the like, but one in particular appears over and over. Like the flood story: lots of Earth cultures have an Utnapishtim or a Noah who saves a portion of civilization from a catastrophic flood. It's a cultural memory. Turns out the Peshari have several different versions of a story that is just as common -- except it's a common terror.

  "In this one population of Peshari, Suzanne's found five or six different versions of the same basic story: a village or town gets buried under a landslide or an avalanche or something. In one version, it's a volcanic eruption like Pompeii. It's entirely likely the event actually happened in their early history, but for some reason -- maybe because their arms are fairly weak so they physically could only dig well with their back feet, who knows? -- it has become an engrained truth that you could sum up by saying, 'It is wrong to bury any person.'

  "No, not just 'wrong' in the basic sense -- reprehensible, unforgivable. To them it's a curse that extends way beyond the person involved. They have recent histories of entire villages being abandoned after an earthquake collapsed a house on top of a couple of them. It wasn't 'cursed is anyone who is buried in the ground,' but 'cursed is the ground in which anyone is buried,' and even 'cursed is the structure that would fall and bury someone.'"

  Cerna swiveled toward the window, toward the mine entrance. One of the trucks, operating by program without human or alien aboard, drove out of the mine and headed toward processing. "If that's true, they're not going to let you do it, you know."

  Keller chuckled. "That's a funny way of putting it."

  "Why?"

  Keller tilted his head. "Because I'll be dead. I won't exactly be 'doing' anything."

  Cerna rolled his shoulders, and his voice deepened in frustration. "Okay, they're not going to do it for you, the way you want."

  "That's why I need you to do it for me," Keller said.

  The next day, Cerna put in the order to fabricate a memorial. Several times he started toward the clinic to talk to Autumn, but Keller had asked him not to. And then, two days later, Keller was dead.

  Cerna got the call from Autumn, and rushed over to her office. She handed him a folded-and-glued paper with his name on it in Keller's tall, thin lettering. "It was in his pocket," she said -- and showed him into the exam room where old Phil lay on a gurney, a light green sheet pulled up over his chest. The effect gave his pale skin a sickly tone.

  Cerna took Keller's hand. "He's really cold now," he said, his voice tight in his throat. Autumn touched Cerna's shoulder; he leaned his head over and a tear slid down his cheek. He kissed it off her hand.

  "What do you have to do next?" Cerna asked.

  Autumn sighed. "I need to scan him to se
e how far his disease had progressed. I'll probably do at least a partial autopsy, to collect some of the tumors and analyze them. Sorry, Toro."

  "No, that's fine. I'm sure he would want you to learn more about what he had, so you can help anyone else . . ." He swallowed. "How long will that take?"

  "As long as no one breaks a leg or anything, I should be done by nightfall."

  "Okay if I come back then? I'd like to sit with him."

  "Of course."

  Cerna wandered at first, thinking, trying to avoid the note that Keller had left him. No doubt Miscente had alerted the Peshari that someone in the camp had died; would the word get to the death-artist, and would he care? The slab Cerna had ordered fabricated with Keller's name on it would be done that afternoon. But would they let him erect it?

  Cerna realized that he was on Winding Road, and walked to where Keller had gone to watch the sunset -- and the stars -- a handful of days before. He sat down and carefully opened Keller's note.

  My young friend,

  I am much comforted that you agreed to memorialize me rather than having the Tephrist do it. Thank you for indulging my fantasy that my self-determination might survive my demise. Not that any of our self-determination is complete under the P'Shari's benign rule, but they cannot rule our wishes and our dreams.

  We're struggling against entropy here, and until we are out from under the lizards' claws I fear entropy will win sooner than it should. This is a blessed land, and it's no surprise that we both want it. We had title to it, if only because we got here first, but we have no higher court to which we can appeal. We can only claim what we can, when we can.

  If anyone asks why I wish to be buried, tell them whatever you like. Tell them I want to claim a man-sized plot of land in perpetuity, or to curse the ground upon which the P'Shari walk, or that I believe in the resurrection of the body, or that I'm a crazy old man. I promise not to take issue with whatever story you tell.

  I used to hope that you or your children or your children's children would be able to visit Earth one day, but not anymore. Everything is local, and only what is local really matters. I hope that you will come to love this new Earth as much as I have. And that you will enjoy it, freely and in freedom.

  If I may be allowed another wish, a harder wish, I would wish that you could get Jean's cinder block back from the lizards, and bury it next to me. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Earth to Alluvium.

  Thank you again, for showing me greater friendship and forbearance than anyone. I wish only good things for you,

  B.P. Keller

  Cerna smiled at the post-script: "Read more." But he laughed out loud at what Keller had written below that: the unlock codes for his personal e-library, and for the backhoe he had co-opted.

  The usual antiseptic smell of the clinic was undercut with something else, a sour-sick odor Cerna could not identify. Maybe he didn't want to know what it was.

  Autumn was gone, but Nurse Callura let Cerna in. "You going to be okay, Toro? I'd like to take my supper break now."

  He assured her he would be fine, and made his way to the exam room. He was grateful that Autumn had not just covered Keller's body but wrapped it up, head to toe.

  Cerna sat on the little rolling aluminum stool, and slid up next to the table.

  "What are we going to do, old man?"

  He waited, first with his hand on the table, then on the wrapping around Keller's shoulder. Around them the building settled, with groans and pops. He wondered if Peshari buildings made noises like that, and if they spooked the lizards into thinking that they might collapse on them.

  He glanced around at the simple instruments in the room, and thought about Autumn's medicinal chemistry lab -- could she mix up more than medicines in there? If he could plant explosives at the base of the walls of a couple of Peshari homes, and bring them down on top of the residents, would the others take revenge? Would they leave? Over the years, none of the camp's strikes, revolts, or attacks had broken the Peshari hold over the human population. It couldn't be so simple . . . could it?

  Cerna smiled. "I like that idea, old man, thanks. And just for that, I'm going to give you your wish."

  Miscente showed up at Cerna's dormitory early the next afternoon.

  "What the hell did you do, Tauran?"

  Cerna had slept little but well. Anticipating a visit by the camp chief, he had showered after he finished laying Keller to rest and using the backhoe to cover him and set the heavy slab in place. He began dressing in clean clothes, and smiled. "I granted a friend his dying wish."

  Miscente stepped closer, and said in a low voice, "I've got the Peshari commandant outside, with their death-artist, wanting Keller's remains."

  "Really? The Tephrist is here?"

  "Yes, whatever they call it."

  "That's . . . unexpected."

  "Look, the doc says she left Keller's body in the clinic, but when she got in this morning it was gone. Chantal said she let you in before she went to eat, but since the lights were off when she got back, she didn't bother to check."

  "Sounds like a mystery."

  "Don't start. What did you do?"

  Cerna walked to the door and opened it for Miscente. "I did what he wanted. I buried him."

  Miscente stopped before reaching the door, his mouth half open. Cerna shrugged and walked out to the two Peshari. Both were fourth-stagers, the commandant clad in a robe so deep blue it was almost black, with artful saffron swirls around the collar and edges, and the Tephrist in a more workmanlike robe of rough, brown cloth.

  "So, gentle-lizards, what can I do for you today?"

  Behind Cerna, Miscente gasped at the insult, but the Peshari paid it no heed.

  The Tephrist stepped forward. "Jean-El's mate. Would honor with memory-stone. Remains?"

  "Too late," Cerna said. "The memorial's in place."

  The Tephrist and the commandant exchanged quick words and gestures in their own language. Cerna caught a minor fraction of what they said and signaled, largely declarations of impossibility.

  "Come on, I'll show you." He started toward the fake chapel, not caring much whether they followed or not.

  Three of the four trenches in the "basement" were still open to the sky; the second was covered with a thick ceramic block made to look like granite, with Keller's name on it in large block letters. Neither Peshari spoke, and Miscente stepped up to Cerna and said, sotto voce, "You may want to throw yourself in one of those holes if they object to this."

  "I hadn't thought of that," Cerna said. "Good idea. But first, you'll want to check your Portal. There's been another change order on this project."

  "Don't be a smartass, just tell me."

  "I re-designated this area. It's now a graveyard, not a chapel."

  Before Miscente could respond, the commandant said, "Our Tephrist does not command your language as I do. Is this artless block the remains of Jean-El's mate?"

  "No," Cerna said. "It's just a monument. A marker. That's all he wanted, a simple stone to mark his resting place."

  "That idiom escapes me. Resting place? He sleeps?"

  "His body is two meters under that slab. Like this," said Cerna, and jumped down into the third trench where he lay on the bottom, heedless of his clean clothes.

  The keening of the Peshari was far worse than even their laughter.

  "Why?" the Peshari commandant demanded after Miscente had hauled Cerna back out of the grave. The Peshari had retreated a full fifty meters away, and seemed clearly uncomfortable to be even that close. "Why such . . . inhumane treatment?"

  Cerna grinned at the Peshar's word choice. He shook a bit of dirt from his hair, and the lizards each skittered back three more steps.

  "Phil told me he wanted to claim a plot of land all his own. And he believed in the resurrection of the body. I took that to mean that he wanted his body to inhabit his plot of land."

  The two Peshari's hands moved so fast Cerna could not see whether they were actually signing or just waving their
forelimbs with no regard to meaning. Their voices were strident, but also too fast to follow. After a moment the commandant said, almost in a whisper, "So, he is to continue, after corporeal demise?"

  "Sounds right. No telling when."

  "Do many of your people intend thus?"

  Cerna looked at Miscente, but the camp chief clearly had no answer.

  "Not many," Cerna said, "but enough."

  Two days later, the Peshari were still debating among themselves how to address the abomination in the human camp. According to Miscente, a very small minority wanted to pretend it never happened, a vocal faction led by the Tephrist wanted to abandon the colony, and others wanted to raze the human compound and exterminate the inhabitants.

  Cerna had only begun reading about strategy in Keller's old e-library, and researching explosives they might synthesize. He had not yet tried to re-engage his old squad; his mind was too full of direct and indirect approaches, ideas that he had to correlate and digest. But that day would come. War would come. Only now they would have a new tactic, if he could produce the weapons to exploit it.

  He shut off the grinder and blew dust from his handiwork.

  "I thought I might find you here," Autumn said. She stood in the fading afternoon on the other side of the fence Miscente had made Cerna put up around the graveyard. Cerna smirked that the fence line matched Keller's original outline for the would-be "chapel." He waved her in, and stood as she approached.

  "Yeah, what do you think?"

  The lettering was a bit uneven, Cerna thought, but straight and sure enough for not being programmed into a machine. Autumn read the line in a clear, strong voice.

  "Glad did he live and gladly died, and laid him down with a will." She reached out and held Cerna's hand. "So you knew?"

  "I adapted it from a poem Phil had marked as a favorite," Cerna said. "I'll do the whole thing eventually, in smaller type . . . Wait, knew what?"

  Autumn shook her head. "He was in so much pain, Toro, more than he ever showed. At the end, I gave him what I could, what I had, but I let him decide how much to take. I let him decide . . . when to let go."